Have you ever wanted to ride on an elephant? You might find it fun for a few minutes. However, we had to take a long trip on elephants one day, and we did not enjoy our elephant ride!
Sarah and I were missionaries in a country that used elephants for travel. We had just visited a new village some distance from where we lived, and now we were on the backs of two elephants, tramping through wet jungle on our way home. As we brushed wet leaves from our faces and caterpillars out of our hair and out from down our necks, we looked forward to getting home and having baths and sleeping in our own beds.
But our trip got worse. Soon we had sores at every spot where our bodies rubbed against the howdahs. Howdahs are the baskets we sat in on the elephants’ backs. Mosquitoes, flies of all sizes, and other insects of all kinds feasted on us, and we had many swollen, itchy and sore bites. Our elephant drivers lost their way through the “caterpillar” jungle, and we wandered around for a long time before they found the trail again.
Then it started to rain - not a gentle rain, but a tropical downpour with strong winds that blew our umbrellas inside out. We had to close them and put them beside us in the howdahs, and so we got drenched.
The downpour continued, and we could see that there were running streams of water in places where there had never been a watercourse before. And where there had been streams, they were now rivers. Finally we came to the last river we had to cross that day, not far from where we lived.
Usually this river was so shallow it didn’t even reach our knees. Now it was so deep that, if it hadn’t been moving so fast, I might have thought it had turned into a lake. The rocks and boulders were completely covered. I couldn’t guess how deep the water was, but one look at the faces of the elephant drivers and we knew we were in real trouble. Seeing the churning water carry huge clumps of bamboo and whole trees and logs, I could understand why they were frightened to cross it. And so were we.
Sarah was on a larger elephant than I was on, and she was terrified for me. She was right - I was in for trouble in the deep, rushing river. My smaller elephant plunged into that river, and the next thing I knew my howdah suddenly tipped over! Water poured over me . . . and then we were rightside up again, and the elephant was climbing out on the other side of the river. In that short time, we had been carried about 300 feet downriver from where Sarah’s elephant had climbed out of the water.
Have you ever been afraid of something? Perhaps you are afraid of a teacher, or a test, or a bully at school, or even of the dark. Maybe you have a serious illness and you are afraid to die. The Lord Jesus loves you and can carry you safely through whatever problem you face that scares you. King David wrote, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me” (Psalm 23:44Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4)). Death is probably the scariest thing any of us will ever face. But even that did not make King David afraid, because he knew the Lord loved him and was his Shepherd. And you can know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, as well as your Shepherd. The Lord Jesus died so that He could wash away your sins, making you His very own, and then take care of you in all of your problems, big or small. He tells us in 1 Peter 5:77Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (1 Peter 5:7) to “[cast] all your care upon Him; for He [cares] for you.”
As a Christian friend helped us down from our elephants, he was amazed that we had crossed that swollen river safely. He knew that the miracle that day was not that the elephants had crossed that flooded river. Elephants can swim and like water, but when an elephant swims it uses muscles that expand its stomach -right where the moldy ropes tie the howdah onto its back! The miracle was that the ropes holding my howdah had not broken as my elephant swam through that river.
And so, boys and girls, you never need to be afraid if you have trusted the Lord Jesus as your Saviour. He is strong enough to carry you through any size problem that comes your way. All you need to do is ask Him to help you, and He will, because He loves you so much.
ML-03/15/1998