At our recent men’s quarterly fellowship at the Oldham Lane church, one of the songs we sang was “Throw Out the Lifeline”. Frankly, I hadn’t sung that song in years. But the message is so powerful.

“Throw out the lifeline across the dark wave; there is a brother whom someone should save; Somebody’s brother! O who then will dare to throw out the lifeline, His peril to share?”

In our seemingly chaotic world, there is always someone who is sinking, drifting, drowning. May God help us to open our hearts and eyes to see!

A local lifesaving station near Nantucket had a Lyle gun to shoot out a lifeline to ships in need. In 1886, while they were watching a lifesaving drill and could see some of the previous wrecks that happened on the rocky shores, a reporter from the Boston Globe, related a story where a schooner was being tossed in a storm which threatened to smash it. The lifeline was shot out several times but fell short until finally it reached the vessel and enabled the ship to be hauled in.

Message?? Never give up on throwing out the lifeline! There is no time for delay! Someone will surely drift away. Someone is sinking! Never assume that someone else will throw out the lifeline. That is your job and mine! May God lead us to that one person!