About thirty-two years ago, just after I had become the pastor of a small church called The Upper Room Chapel, I was beginning to enjoy it when people thought they needed to depend on me for their spiritual growth. That would only lead to disaster, so I needed to be taught the following lesson quickly.

One hot summer afternoon, my nine-year-old son, Peter, and I were swimming in a lake at a state park. He had been taking swimming lessons and wanted to show me how well he could swim, so I walked out into the water as far as I could; then he would swim to me. I would move to another spot and do the same. This got to be a little routine, and then I noticed a raft several hundred feet away and decided to give him more of a challenge. "Pete, do you think you could make it to the raft?" I asked. "Sure, Dad, let's go," was the reply. I looked at the distance again and began to have second thoughts. "Are you sure you can make it?" I said. Same reply, "Sure, Dad, let's go." I proceeded to instruct him, "If you get tired, hang onto me, and I'll pull you along." He replied, "O.K. Dad, let's get going." So we began to swim.

Only seconds went by when I heard a voice calling, "Dad, my arms are tired." I laughed and replied, "That's O.K., Pete, just keep going." About ten seconds later I heard a voice again crying, "Dad, my arms hurt!" Then I began to tread water and called him to come over and hang onto me while I swam to the raft. First, I could feel a small hand on the back of my shoulder. Then, I felt a grip around my neck that was like a hangman's noose (after the trap door had been opened). "Cough, cough, cough . . . gag . . . Pete . . . ease up . . . I can't . . . breathe!" The grip became even tighter. I didn't want to alarm him any more than he was, so I tried not to let him become aware of the difficulty I was having as I proceeded to swim toward the raft.

Minutes seemed like hours. Finally, we were about twenty feet from our destination. My wind was almost gone; every bone in my body ached, but I knew we could make it to the raft. Then suddenly, I heard a loud voice, "You with the kid on your back, come back here to shore!" It was the lifeguard on the beach. Again, he called over a portable loudspeaker, "You with that kid on your back, come back right now!" This was an embarrassing situation. Even in the condition I was in, my pride would not let me say, "I can't make it back. I need to go to the raft."

So back we started. It was the longest swim of my life. I thought, How did I get into a spot like this? I prayed, "Lord, please don't let us drown. Get us back to shore and make Peter stop choking me!" I was near exhaustion when my feet finally touched bottom and my head was above the water. Peter loosened his grip and I could breathe again. I instructed him to swim to shore and that I would join him in a few minutes.

I stood still, thinking about the frightening experience. It seemed as if I were alone in the lake, although several people were swimming nearby. Then I heard a voice speaking in my spirit, and I knew it was the voice of the Lord: "If you allow anyone to hang onto you instead of Me, you both will go under."

I learned this principle well, and over the years have been obedient to those instructions. Now, when I am tempted to let someone cling to me, thinking they need me instead of the Lord, my mind goes back to that episode at the lake; and the thought of being choked and pulled under water makes it easy for me to move out of their reach.

Some people may say, "Is that lesson so important that the Lord would allow you to almost drown to learn it?" My answer is, "Yes." It is a lesson that should be learned at any cost because it relates to something of great value that belongs only to the Lord: the affections of His people!

We read in the Bible that one time John the Baptist was informed that people were being baptized by someone else. In other words, he was losing his following to this Nazarene called Jesus. His reply was, "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:29, 30). It is unthinkable for a friend of the bridegroom to try to steal the affection of the bride away from the groom. Yet, there are pastors, teachers, and other workers who will try to get for themselves the affections from other Christians that should belong only to the Lord. It would be better to drown than be guilty of that.

It is a blessing to see people go directly to the Lord for counsel. One day, shortly after my experience at the lake, a woman from the church called my wife to share a testimony. She said, "Last week I was going through a terrible struggle. I had a big fight with my husband, the children were cranky, our money ran out, and I was ready to just leave--for good. I picked up the phone to call your husband for counsel. As I dialed, I thought, I know exactly what he's going to say: ‘Go pray about it.’ Then I decided not to call him but to go into prayer. As I was praying, God's peace came over me like a river. My heart became overflowing with love for Him, also for my family. Soon, we were all together again." I am glad that this woman learned to cling to the Lord and not to people.

God has many men and women who are excellent, dedicated, faithful and gifted teachers in the Body of Christ, for which I am thankful; but, really, we Christians have only one TEACHER--the Holy Spirit--whom Jesus said "the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things . . ." (John 14:26). Only He can place the love of God in our hearts; only He can teach us the Holiness of God; only He can produce fruit in our lives that will glorify God; and only He is able to bypass the human intellect and get truth into the heart.

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