Pa’s Swimming Lessons, and how a child learned faith

“…And a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6b).

Part One: My Grandpa’s River – A Faith Ungrounded

I was about five years old when my younger brother Dennis and I would visit my grandparents on their 40-acre farm on the Oklahoma-Kansas border. One of the reasons my early swimming advanced relatively quickly (well, sort of) had to do with a river on that farm.

As I remember it, Grandpa went to the river, but he never went in the river. He always sat on the bank holding a shotgun, surveying the waterline for water moccasins[1] and occasionally ordering us out of the water when he saw one. I remember him shooting one once, but we never found its remains.

We were told that Grandpa’s brothers “taught him how to swim” by rowing him out into the middle of a lake and throwing him in. “Sink or swim!” they shouted. Well, he made it back to shore but never “swam” again all his remaining days.

Dennis and I were fans of a popular TV show called Sea Hunt (1957-1961). The show was full of deep water dangers from sharks to octopuses, and we were impressed how the actors could swim under water for hours when outfitted with oxygen tanks on their backs.

When we went to Grandpa’s river at the farm, Dennis and I would play-act Sea Hunt and swim under water acting out the high adventure we imagined from the TV show – primarily fighting off water-moccasins! I could never understand why Grandpa was so afraid to get in the water as Dennis and I swam like fish as fearless as we could be!

However, what we lacked in that river playground was perspective. We were in shallow water that reached only to our waists and even when “under water” our toes and hands never lost contact with the sandy bottom. We were invincible, or so we thought, because outside of that shallow river, the only body of water we ever entered was a 3-ring inflatable pool in our backyard. But one sad and fateful day, I too discovered the paralyzing fear of water known to my grandpa, and it took me years to develop the faith needed to overcome that fear.

Part Two: A Real Pool Becomes a Real Fear – My False Faith Was Shaken

During the aforementioned river adventure years, when I was about seven years old, our home residence was moved to Denver, CO because of my daddy’s new job. My daddy’s new company held an office picnic in the Colorado mountains. There was going to be horseback riding and a real swimming pool!

Gary, Daddy (Dick), and Dennis

On the ride there, Dennis and I enthusiastically talked about the high adventure that we were going to have playing Sea Hunt in a real deep pool! Our mother overheard our boasting and hopes of grand adventure and gravely warned us, “You boys be careful, this is a dangerous pool! The lifeguard doesn’t pay much attention, and many children have drowned!”

Familiar with many such matronly warnings, my brother and I listened respectfully, but frankly, we had no capacity to understand the value of her warnings from our limited, ungrounded experience. And so our grand mountain picnic began fearlessly and on a high note of adventure!

Long after lunch and an adventuresome horseback ride (in which Dennis pulled me off the horse so I landed on my back – severely knocking the wind out of me!), we went swimming in the “dangerous pool,” while our sisters, and our brother were on a runaway horseback ride of their own high adventure 🐎🐎🐎.

Now, we only had the visuals of Sea Hunt in our heads but none of the actual experience of real, ungrounded, deep-water swimming. Our imagined “diving and swimming” mistakenly filled us full of ungrounded bravado!

With the anticipation of a boy influenced by hours of zealous enthusiasm, I ran towards my aquatic adventure, and from the shallow end of the pool, I took a broad swan-like dive and pulled several long breaststrokes – and then attempted to stand up like I always did in the river. Unfortunately, my long smooth gliding strokes brought me into the deep end of the pool where the water was entirely over my head.

I sank.

Remembering the cartoons that show how you how to “bob” three times before you drown, I gasped for air on my first “bob” and desperately looked for the lifeguard. Now, true to Mother’s description, the lifeguard was gazing out in space completely oblivious to my demise.

I bobbed again, and again!

As I began sinking for the third time, I braced for my final demise, when my daddy grabbed me from underneath the water and pulled me to safety. My grand adventure was finished, and I was left in total blind terror of water. I clung to the side of the pool never to venture away from its firm shallow hold for many years. It didn’t help me to watch my baby sister fall in face-first and also nearly drown!

Thus began the chapter of my unreasonable fear of swimming. NEVER would I willingly let go of the safety of the pool side, no matter how kindly I was coaxed. I became the embodiment of my grandpa’s fear of water.

Part Three: Developing Faith from Little Children

The Cox Family (Gary lower right)

We moved from Colorado to Maryland, yet no amount of summer swimming lessons could calm my fear and coax me from my death-grip of the side of the pool! I failed multiple sessions of beginner lessons at two neighborhood pools. In fact, I trusted no adult. My mother nearly gave up on me! I could not shake off my fear.

So, did I ever learn how to swim? Yes, I did, and that story reflects the Scripture verse at the heading of this chapter. …And a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11:6b) It took fearless little swimming hobbits to shame me out of my fear!

By this time, my parents had joined a summertime membership at our local pool. We had swimming lessons in the morning and free swim time in the afternoons. However, it was the afternoon free swim time that helped me to get a grip on my fear.

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a bright and sunny afternoon, and I was in the shallow end of the pool, clinging to its side like always. Now, in my regular beginner lessons the first step to swimming was to put your face in the water. The second step was to then lift your feet and kick while holding onto the wall. The giant third step was to let go of the wall and stroke your arms. I never let go of the wall.

Here I was, at nine years old, desperately clinging to the wall while watching little children five years younger than me fearlessly swim around in the open shallow end of the pool. After a short while, I began to feel ashamed to be clinging so tightly to the wall!

I eventually mustered the courage to let go of the edge and walk around in the open water. It was safe! Just like the old river bed! Then, watching these little children fearlessly swim around face down, I decided that I could try it just once, like them.

And so I did! Face down! I didn’t drown! I did it again and again till I was back into the high adventures of Sea Hunt!

That summer, I passed Beginners, Intermediates, and Advanced swimming lessons! By the end of summer, I was on the swim team!! But it took the example of fearless little children to teach me the first lesson of overcoming faith. I was converted from my fear by seeing the faith of those little children in action.

Remember what Jesus said when he called a little child to Him and set him in the middle of the adults: “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Mat. 18:2-4). Always remember this: it is easier for a child to trust God than for an adult to trust God. We all must become like little children in order to experience the conversion of trusting God! Faith requires us to leave the confidence of our understanding at the edge of our knowledge and leave the unknown to God. Children have a lot less knowledge and are therefore sooner able to act on their faith and trust God with the unknown.

Here are two simple truths that we can apply to ourselves that will help both us and our children to walk in faith.

First, faith is not an intellectual exercise. Faith is an action, an action based upon an honest expectation with hope in a realistic promise. Faith does something! It does not have to be profound, but it has to be acted upon. That action should be very simple in deed, so much so, that a little child can learn by watching you demonstrate your faith in clear and simple ways.

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see“ (Heb 11:1 NET). When you see someone being sure and convinced about what they believe so much so that they take fearless action, it can stir up courage in your own life. How much more is that influence, if we see adults like little children walking fearlessly in steps of faith?

Second, you can train your child’s faith if you are attentive to your child’s frame of mind and feelings and show them how to take little steps of faith that overcome their fears. This is especially true if your are teaching them by example, and you yourself are actually taking “child-like” steps of faith before them. Faith is not a one-and-done proposition; faith grows one step at a time, from faith to faith. (Romans 1:17) Faith is the discipline of a disciple. “Now all discipline seems painful at the time, not joyful. But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it” (Heb 12:11 NET).

We are living in a time of increasing confusion and conflict. Life is increasingly scary! On the one hand, no one can expect to endure the trials coming upon us by imagining that our sure shallow-water footing will be sufficient in the torrent of a great flood. “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how can you contend with horses? and [if] in the land of peace, [wherein] thou trusted, [they wearied thee], then how will you do in the swelling of Jordan?” (Jer 12:5 KJV)

Let us be trainers and disciples of faith, for surely, that alone pleases God! (Heb. 11:6) God bless you as you seek to demonstrate child-like faith openly to your family!

[1] Also known as a cottonmouth, the water moccasin (Agkistrodon piscivorus) is a species of pit viper native to the central and eastern United Sates. It is one of the world’s few semiaquatic vipers (along with the Florida cottonmouth). Adults are large and capable of delivering a painful and potentially fatal bite. Sources: Wikipedia and Livescience.com