The One About Triathlons, Drowning, and Lifting Our Eyes

Dear West Family

1 I lift my eyes toward the mountains. 
Where will my help come from? 
2 My help comes from the Lord, 
the Maker of heaven and earth.  - Ps 121:1–2 (CSB)

A few years ago I decided to “participate” in the “sport” of triathlon. “Participate” and “sport” are in air-quotes because while this is a very serious sport for some athletes, I am not an athlete and so my “participation” felt more like survival than any sort of sport. You see, you always get various sorts of people at endurance athletic events and I noticed these groups at my first event. Some are athletes there to race, many are wannabe athletes there to race but a whole lot slower. Some are there as a result of some misguided resolutions or dares, or because they are trying to seize the day in denial of their vanishing youth. Many seem to be there because they really hate themselves and need the pain as a comforting reminder of just how much. 

I am still not sure why I was there, and yet there I was, in a wetsuit, looking like a half-used tube of toothpaste, staring out at the kilometers of brown open water, and starting to identify with the group that clearly hated themselves. I am terrified of open water. I knew the swim was going to be the toughest leg as I was surprisingly good at cycling (even without shaving my legs) and I knew that the run was just slowly falling forwards towards the finish. But, there is something about open water that terrifies me, and suddenly my wet suit felt four sizes too small when in reality it was only three sizes too small, and my goggles started to steam up, and I forgot how to breathe … and then the race started. 

The start of a competitive triathlon is terrifying. It’s swim or be swum over and I was the latter. I somehow managed about 500 meters but by then it was enough. I was disoriented, panicking, and felt as if I was going to drown. Fortunately, the lake was quite shallow and the route quite narrow (part of why I chose this race) and so I made my way to the shore to quit the race as I thought that I had a genuine chance of dying if I didn’t. Before I made it out of the water (and thus disqualified myself) a lifeguard came running over. His name was Sifiso, and his conversation with me didn’t just change that moment, but has been something that has changed my perspective on many moments in my life.

Sifiso: Hey bro. You okay?

Drowning Ross: Yeah man. I just can’t get my breath. It’s too dark, too cold. I am struggling.

Sifiso: You got a family?

Ross: Uh yup. Wife and a couple of kids. Boy and a girl.

Sifiso: You ready to go home and tell your son you quit something when it got hard?

Ross: Uh …. What?

Sifiso: Listen man, you can’t quit. I won’t let you. 

Ross: Dude. I can’t keep going. It’s too much.

Sifiso: You see that beacon across the lake?

Ross: Yes.

Sifiso: That’s the finish of the swim leg. All I want you to do is to keep moving forward, and when you freak out, look up and spot that beacon.

Ross: I don’t know if I can.

Sifiso: You keep your eye on the beacon and I will keep my eye on you. My job is to make sure you don’t drown. Your job is to make sure you don’t quit.

Ross: You know I am going to use this in so many sermons.

Sifiso: Not if you quit you won’t. 

Ross: Shut up Sifiso.

This is me giving Sifiso the thumbs up at the end of the swim. He gave me something to focus on so that I didn't become overwhelmed with what was in front of me and around me and potentially beneath me, and it was that perspective, together with the certainty of his watchful eye that helped me to persevere through something (trivial as it was) that I really didn’t think I could survive.

The last few weeks have been like an open water swim in the Lester house. It feels like we have been getting it from all sides with waves, wind, other swimmers, darkness, cold … all of it. There have been times when it has been very disorienting, but in those times I have remembered the words of Sifiso and the calming declaration of Psalm 121. 

1 I lift my eyes toward the mountains. 
Where will my help come from? 
2 My help comes from the Lord, 
the Maker of heaven and earth.  - Ps 121:1–2 (CSB)

Friends, sometimes you just have to lift your eyes. The one who made the mountains is watching over you and ready and available to help you in whatever you are facing. 

His job is to make sure you don’t drown. Yours is to make sure you don’t quit.

The music this week is from The War on Drugs. It is sad, but also spectacular.
The War On Drugs - Living Proof [Official Video]

Press on.
See you Sunday.

Ross