A kitten in the water? How strange! Kittens don’t like water. A little kitten, no matter how young, would never willingly be immersed in water. But there he was, a tiny marmalade-colored kitten, miles out on Homosassa Bay.
And he did not like it! His tiny paws were paddling as hard as they possibly could, and he was “screaming at the top of his lungs” (and a very young kitten can be surprisingly loud).
The season had just opened for scallops, and there were probably forty boats out on the bay that day. It is likely that kitty fell—or was dropped—from one of them. Three miles out, there would have been no chance that he could get to shore on his own.
But his frantic struggles were seen—and heard! A kindhearted woman on one of the boats scooped him up, dried him off, and kept him warm and cuddled up until the end of the day’s fishing. Then she took him to the vet, who pronounced him a healthy ten-week-old and sent him off to a new home and safety.
There was no way he could have saved himself, no matter how hard he struggled. But his desperate cry for help was heard and answered even as so many of us have found.
(Remember Peter on the Sea of Galilee? His frightened cry, “Lord, save me,” brought an immediate answer: “Immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand, and caught him.”)
There is no way we can reach heaven by our greatest efforts. We cannot earn it, win it or attain to it. It is not by anything we can do ourselves; it is “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (Titus 3:55Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5)). When we cry out to that incredible mercy, when we admit that we are just helpless sinners, but we do believe in Him and His power to save, His all-powerful hand is stretched out to save us.
The shore may be miles away, but the rescued soul can “trust, and not be afraid.” Whatever the waves and storms may be ahead of him, he knows that he will never perish, “but have everlasting life.” The Lord Jesus said so!