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Coyotes on the high seas
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Friday, June, 04, 2010
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by John Fischer
A week ago Sunday, 5 dads and 7 kids set sail from Catalina Island to Newport Beach on the southern California coast amidst 18 foot cresting swells and up to 30 knots of wind, and Chandler and I were among them. My wife and undoubtedly the other wives thought we were foolish and ill-advised to put our kids at risk in such conditions. Having never sailed before, I had no knowledge of the line between risk and safety. Our skipper, who had logged thousands of miles on his family's Cal 40 sailing vessel was not overly concerned, and two of the other dads had a good deal of hours at sea between them. The fact that the winds were behind us and the swells were pushing us more or less in the right direction lessened our worries as well. It meant we could actually surf the bigger waves across the channel. As our last official event as part of the Coyote tribe of Y-Guides dads and sons, it was an adventure we will not soon forget.
The next day we found out that a smaller sail boat that left the same Catalina harbor at roughly the same time as we did washed up onto the shore near Palos Verdes, a few miles north of our destination, with no one on board. The man who was sailing solo has not been found. When I heard this, I got a little weak in the knee even though I had been safely on land for almost a day. Those same seas we had crossed just a day earlier had claimed the life of a man who, according to the newspaper story, was, like our skipper, an accomplished sailor.
Have you ever gotten a glimpse of the magnitude of the danger you were in without even noticing it? In regards to spiritual warfare, I believe it's like this all the time. It's a battle of unseen forces beyond our control. Be grateful that God is on your side.
Stop right now and thank God for his protection over you. There is so much he is doing for us that we don't even realize.
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