DAY 4: Going Under

As we’ve seen, engaging with a drowning person is dangerous, and even well-intentioned efforts to help can escalate into greater conflict. But what if someone is drowning and the rescuer doesn’t have a flotation device to use? What if keeping a safe distance means letting the person drown? When faced with conflict on the surface, lifeguards go under.

To make a safe rescue when direct physical contact with the drowning victim is required, I was taught to go under. If I try to make a rescue at the surface, I’m likely to end up in a wrestling match that could easily end with me in a headlock under the water as I discovered in that first simulated rescue of my instructor. We could both end up drowning. Rather than engaging at the surface, as I approached the struggling swimmer, I would instead dive down under the water, and swim underneath him. Then, I would grab his feet and pull down hard, forcing him under. The natural reaction when people are pulled underwater is for their hands to shoot up over their heads. In this position, where their entire body is in one long line as if they were stretching upward from their toes to fingers, they can be more easily subdued. In this moment, I would grab him from behind across his chest and under his armpit, squeezing as hard as necessary to maintain control, and surface with his lower back supported by my hip, swimming sideways safely back to shore.

Choosing Humility

When we see someone drowning in life, we can take the same approach. Instead of engaging in the conflict and allowing it to escalate and risk the well-being of everyone involved, we can simply choose to go under. We choose humility.

Lifeguards make rescues from a position of strength and readiness, not from a place of deep hurt. Going under does not mean enduring abuse for the sake of another. Your physical, mental, and spiritual safety matters too.

Going under means that instead of standing our ground, that we humble ourselves to do what is necessary to bring peace and resolution in the relationship. Our natural tendency is to want to argue and fight and push back and to engage in conflict. We choose to trade words, trade punches, and trade text messages. And yet the best thing to do is to go under. It is to choose a position of humility. If we are to be lifeguards, if we are to bring healing to broken relationships, if we are to aid someone who is drowning, then a show of humility is better than a show of strength.

Sometimes it's better to do right than to be right. Assuming a posture of humility – going under – leads us and others to shalom. Remember, drowning people behave like drowning people. They will not willingly go under, but you can.

Paul encouraged the church at Philippi on this matter when he wrote, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.”

REFLECTION

Instead of engaging in the conflict and allowing it to escalate and risk the well-being of everyone involved, we can simply choose to go under. What challenging dynamic or relationship might benefit from your humble response?