If Life's a Beach, 
Swim Between the Flags!
Copyright 2001 by Debbie Porter

Christmas Day is a notoriously slow news day. Almost every broadcast we heard or saw related almost totally to how the day was being celebrated here in Australia. In all honesty, the repetitive stories become a little boring by the end of the day. But there are no complaints about the fact that in general, on this one day at least, there is a sense of peace on earth.

The day after Christmas in Australia is a public holiday, and is almost as lacking in news-worthy stories as Christmas Day. Apart from the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race, there was one other story that headlined in all the news bulletins. It was a repetitive message but one that was so vitally important and deadly serious, that not once did I consider it boring.

The message that came through our radios and televisions from sun-up to sun-down was incredibly simple:

If you're swimming on Sydney beaches, PLEASE swim between the flags!

The desperation of the Surf Lifesavers was obvious as this plea was repeated in every news bulletin. Why? Because this one 4-day weekend alone had seen 8 people drown on Australian beaches, with 720 swimmers in need of rescue and 4,500 people given warnings on Sydney beaches alone. All because they failed to swim within the safety of the flags.  

Mr. Leahy, a spokesman for Surf Lifesaving Australia, made the following comment:

"We are now performing more rescues than ever with people simply refusing to swim between the flags through either ignorance, complacency or arrogance"

As we sat eating our lunch and listening to the midday news, Steve and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes. The foolishness of so many people to totally disregard the wisdom of the lifeguards left me shaking my head in disbelief. The tragedy was that because the rules hadn't been obeyed, there were now eight families trying to cope with the grief of losing a loved one. Eight families who would be forever reminded of their loss with the arrival of every Christmas Day.

Apart from that, there were 720 separate occasions over 96 hours, where Sydney lifesavers had risked their own lives in order to bring a swimmer to safety. Not only had the recklessness or thoughtlessness of the swimmers put their own lives in danger, they had potentially jeopardized the lives of their brave rescuers. No wonder these heroic men and women are now begging to be given more authority to penalise offenders. Until that happens they are like voices in the wilderness, crying out to the sun and surf-lovers, "PLEASE! SWIM BETWEEN THE FLAGS!"

To be fair, this time of year brings an enormous increase in the number of tourists flocking to Sydney's popular beaches. For visitors used to a very cold Winter Christmas, the appeal of spending Christmas on the beach in summer sunshine is very appealing. For some of these holiday-makers, the rules of safe swimming may be quite unknown. But for others it is exactly as Mr. Leahy said, nothing more than complacency and arrogance. Either, "Aw that stuff happens to everyone else, it won't happen to me!" or, "What gives them the right to tell me what to do? It's a free country, I'll do what I want."

It makes me wonder whether these people believe that the lifesavers are out to spoil their fun. That somehow they don't really know what they're doing when they mark the safe swimming area, and just want to make life hard for the swimmers.

The reality is that these men and women know the hidden treachery and perils of the surf all too well. Their only goal and aim is to provide a safe environment for all beach-goers and protect them from the dangers that lurk outside the invisible boundary lines set by the flags.

Don't we often treat God the same way? There are so many people who really believe that God is some sort of celestial party-pooper. That He just wants to stop us having fun all the time. Just as this is totally wrong about the lifesavers who mark the safe boundaries on our beaches, so too is it wrong about our Heavenly Father and the boundaries that He has laid out for us.

Through Christ, we have incredible freedom but with that freedom comes responsibility. God has set out a way for each of His children to live safely and abundantly. The choice is ours to either live within the boundary of His flags, or to disregard His perfect way and venture out into the dangerous waters.

He knows what dangers lie outside His boundaries. He didn't just decide to set a list of rules and regulations to make life difficult. He shows us through His Word to us (the Bible) the way to live under His protection in freedom and safety. He also points out the consequences of stepping out from under that protection.

The wisdom of the book of Proverbs puts the choice between obedience and disobedience rather bluntly:

"He who obeys instructions guards his life, but he who is contemptuous
of his ways will die."
(Proverbs 19:16 NIV)

Is it easy to always stay within God's 'flags'? The honest answer is, no, at times it isn't. Even someone like me, who by nature of personality is a chronic rule-keeper and sign-obeyer, will be quick to admit that I regularly step into the treacherous waters outside God's will for my life. The consequences can be extremely serious, and not only just in relation to my own life. When I arrogantly or complacently step out from the Father's protection by ignoring His rules, I not only impact the course of my life, but the potential is there to negatively impact the lives of others as well.

So how do we stay safely within God's 'flags' of safety? The Apostle John shows us the only way:

"But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how
we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."
(1 John 2:5-6 NIV)

We can't obey God if we don't know where His boundaries are. The only way we are ever going to find this out is by reading the Bible and discovering what His expectations are for our lives. As we read, we may be surprised that some of the things we believed were against the rules, actually fall quite safely between the 'flags'. We may also discover that we've been paddling in water that's well outside the safety of His boundary line and need to come back under His protective gaze.

We can't obey if we're living in ignorance, any more than if we're totally aware of His rules and arrogantly choose to ignore them believing that God can't tell us what to do. We also can't complacently decide that it's alright to swim in the dangerous waters now and again because God will forgive us anyway.

The simplest way to live within the safety of the Father's 'flags' is to become an imitator of Jesus Christ. As John wrote, if we say we're living in Him, then we have to walk as He did. The decision to walk in His way or walk on our own, is ours to make every day.

Jesus Christ is the greatest lifesaver the world will ever know. If we follow His direction and leading, we can be confident of always living safely within the protection of the Father's 'flags' of love.

"True obedience is a matter of love, which makes it voluntary, not compelled by fear or force."

~ Dorothy Day ~