Several years ago, Randa and I took a rafting trip on the Cumberland River below its falls near Corbin, Kentucky. It’s not the Colorado River but it has a few interesting rapids and miles of rugged beauty. Bluffs rise up around the river and boulders large as houses mark the path of the water. Smaller ones often provide a bit of navigation challenge. At normal water levels, most of the rapids are Level II and III. The Three’s are tricky enough to be fun but over soon enough to keep them from turning into Four’s, a factor that become key on this particular trip.

It was a cloudy day in September and not nearly warm enough to make a plunge into the water sound very inviting. Besides that, Randa wore contacts and was afraid of losing one or both of them if she went overboard. After we were the only two in our group of six rafters who declined our whitewater rafting guide’s invitation to take a swim in one of the calm, deep stretches of the river, he seemed determined to get us into the water. He kept cajoling, suggesting, even mocking us. When the verbal attempts proved unfruitful, he resorted to other measures.

He tried bouncing the front of the raft off of midstream boulders. He tried cutting hard across swift waters. Even though Randa and I sat in the front where it is often the easiest to dislodge paddlers, we had too much river experience for those tricks to work. We kept one foot pushed out in front of us, wedged in the joint between the wall and floor of the raft and shifted our weight to counteract the impact. Finally, he deliberately swung the raft crosswise across a powerful hydraulic and flipped the entire raft. He had finally managed to get Randa and me into the water, along with all of the other paddlers and himself.

In the slower water below the rapids, we helped flip the raft back over and climbed back in without losing anything but a good bit of respect for the guide.

The God who is our Guide will be with us through every eddy, every cut and turn, every rushing rapid and the long miles of slow water. But he will never put us in danger for the sake of his own amusement.

H. Arnett
10/07/09