While I was making breakfast one morning last week, I listened to Dr. Stephen Davey’s radio program, Wisdom for the Heart. He told one man’s account of preparing to go white-water rafting at the base of Victoria Falls in Africa. He said the highest class of rapids one can legally take a raft on in the US is Class 5. These rapids were Class 8.

Among the guide’s instructions were these: when (not if, but when) your raft overturns, stay in the rough waters. He said your first instinct is to make it to the shore where the waters are still and quiet. However, you don’t want to do that because that’s where the crocodiles are.

I am not planning to ever go white water rafting. But when I am in life’s rough waters, my first instinct is to get out of them as soon as possible. When life is calm again, then I’ll be ready to learn whatever lessons I need to.

Yet life doesn’t work that way. God wants us to trust Him in the rough waters as well as the still ones.

Sometimes you have to let the waters take you to their expected end. Sometimes there are hidden dangers in what seems safe.

That same morning, I had read Exodus 5 and 6 where Moses approached Pharaoh for the first time to tell him God had said to let the Israelites go three days’ journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord. Pharaoh, of course, did not consent. In addition, he stopped supplying them with brick-making material, told them to find their own, yet required the same quota of bricks for them.

The people were upset with Moses for making life worse for them. Moses cried out to God. Why have you brought this trouble on Your people? Why have you sent me here? You haven’t delivered Your people (with the seeming implication, “Like you said you would”).

God was going to keep His promises. He loved His people and was going to deliver them from Egypt’s oppression. But He had a larger purpose. In Exodus 6:7, God told Moses, “You shall know that I am the LORD your God.” But in 7:5, He also said, “The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.”

The process would take time and be difficult. But they would see the hand of the Lord like never before.

Similarly, after Israel was freed from Egypt and standing at the edge of the land God had promised to them, they refused to go in. It was going to be too difficult, too dangerous, too much work. They had God’s promises plus the experience of seeing all He did to deliver them from Egypt. But they wanted to play it safe. For their unbelief and disobedience, they were made to wander forty years in the wilderness.

Sometimes troubled waters come on us unexpectedly, like the Israelites in Egypt. What’s happening doesn’t seem like an answer to prayer. In fact, the situation seems the opposite of answered prayer. But God sees the bigger picture. He often has more in mind than we know. He knows what He wants to accomplish, where He plans to lead us, and how He will take care of us.

Sometimes, like the Israelites just outside the promised land, we foresee real or imagined difficulties ahead. Even though we’ve followed God’s leading and we’re right where He wants us, even though we have His promises and experience with His power, we decide the rough waters are just going to be too hard.

Dr. Davey didn’t share the rest of the guide’s instructions. I assume if you fall into rough waters, you let the waves carry you until you can either get back into the raft or until you come to a calmer place that doesn’t have crocodiles.

The psalmist tells of people caught in a storm at sea who, after a harrowing journey, were brought to quiet waters in “their desired haven” (Psalm 107:23-32).

The disciples experienced something similar when they got caught in a storm on a lake. Jesus rebuked the wind and told the sea to be still. (Mark 4:36-41). “And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”

Whatever metaphorical rough waters we might be facing–an unexpected diagnosis, family problems, financial troubles, relational woes, and many others–there are really no options but to ride the waves through the situation. Yet we have His promise that “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you” (Isaiah 43:2).

Then, with the psalmist we can say, “For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. . . . we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance) (Psalm 66:10, 12).

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