“Follow the leader!” yelled Jim. Jim and his friends took off running across the field. Three of the boys were old friends and were together almost all the time. From morning until evening during the summer, they played ball and lots of other things that boys 10, 11 and 12 years old can find to do. But the best thing of all about these three, was that they all loved the Lord Jesus. Each boy had accepted Him as his own Saviour.
However, as of yesterday their “gang” had grown into four. Wayne was the new boy. They had watched Wayne’s family move into the big red house at the end of their street. Although shy at first, Wayne was happy to find some boys his own age to play with.
Across the field, over the pasture fences, a leap over Pebble Creek, and on they ran. It was lots of fun! Up the hill and through the woods they ran. Jim was a good leader. Sometimes they jumped over fallen logs, sometimes they crawled under branches, then down narrow trails and across mounds of rocks, but they were always running.
Wayne noticed that they were running near a small river. As they continued on up a hill, he could hear the sound of rushing water. They came out of the woods into a clearing, and there was the top of a waterfall! The river flowed over a rock cliff and fell 30 feet to the rocks below. It was so pretty that Wayne stopped to look. As he watched the falls and rushing river, he quickly saw that the rest of the boys were already on the other side. He wondered how they had gotten over there. Looking around he saw their “bridge.” It was an old board about eight inches wide. He could see that if he wanted to get to the other side, their “bridge” was the only way to cross. He guessed Jim and the other boys had crossed it many times, but he was not too sure he wanted to cross it.
Wayne looked down at the water splashing on the rocks below. A cold shiver ran up and down his back. The boys were looking back at him and waving for him to come over. If he refused to follow, they might think he was a sissy. Looking down at the rocks again, he thought to himself that maybe he was. He wasn’t sure he wanted to cross that skinny-looking board.
“Come on!” yelled Jim. “The board is good and strong. Just don’t look down at the waterfall and the rocks—look only at the board. Trust it to take you across. It held us.”
Wayne thought to himself, “I can believe that it will hold me, but that won’t get me across. I’ve got to walk on it and trust it to hold me.” He hesitated as he took his first step, and then it was just a few more quick steps and he was over. “Safe!” he sighed out loud.
After more “follow the leader” the boys rested by the river with their shoes off and their feet in the cool water. They talked about the bridge and how scared each of them had been the first time they went over it. Jim, who was the oldest, said that it reminded him of how Jesus had saved him.
“There was a big gap between God and me,” he explained, “because I was a sinner and He is holy. But Jesus, God’s Son, came and stood between us, just like that board is between the two cliffs. The board is the only way over the river. Jesus is the only way that we can cross over to heaven. We have to see that we cannot get into heaven by ourselves, because our sins are in the way. We have to trust in the Lord Jesus. He is our ‘bridge.’ "
Jim went on to explain: “God cannot accept us with our sins. He loves us so much that He sent the Lord Jesus into this world. On Calvary’s cross Jesus took all God’s punishment for the sins of anyone who will believe on Him. If we believe that He died for our sins, then we are saved. I am just as sure about going to heaven as you were, Wayne, when you said ‘safer after you got across the board.”
Wayne had never heard anything like that before. It seemed to make sense, but it also seemed too easy. He thought about what Jim had said for a couple of weeks. He watched and listened to Jim and the others as they played. He had never met boys like them before.
Jim invited Wayne to go to Sunday school with him. Wayne wanted to go, but his parents would not let him. Now, three weeks later, they said he could go.
At Sunday school he heard the story of God’s love again, just as he had heard it from Jim and the other boys. Hearing the story of God’s love, and seeing his need as a sinner, he accepted the Lord Jesus as his Saviour, too.
He said to Jim on the way home, “I’ve trusted in Jesus just like I trusted in that board to hold me. He is my Saviour now, too.”
ML-07/04/1982