United with Dan on a Mission

2.5 A day at the beach with my best friend

A year after completing school, life was busy; we had both gained experience and become better at ‘adult-ing’. For months in advance, we had been planning to do a road trip together, finally the day arrived and we set out for George.

A summer holiday at George had to include a day at the beach! We followed the advice given by his family to wrap the car keys into a babies nappy while swimming, so that we could be sure it was safe… after all, who would scratch in a nappy, right? Finally a fun day drew to a close and we gathered our things and headed back to the car. After showing off and heading back with some new ‘friends’ in tow was when disaster struck. We arrived at the car, opened the nappy, after having explained all about our ‘masterful plan’ regarding the car keys and realized that they WERE GONE!! The ice cold realisation of the consequences of no keys – being stuck on the beach without transport, 100s of km away from any help, slowly dawned. I remember the expression on my friend’s face, and the expressions of the others looking at us inquiringly: ‘what’s wrong?’ It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I gave out a helpless laugh at the direness of the situation, and further consequences kept entering my realisation: it was evening, how on earth, would we ever find those keys!!!? We dropped everything, quickly back-tracked our steps, checking everywhere, but we couldn’t find it. We finally reached the conclusion that it must be somewhere on that huge beach… but how could we ever hope to find it!!? How long ago did it fall; did it fall out; what if it was stepped on; we can’t dig up the entire beach…. The situation was dire! I turned to my friend, who was somewhere between agnostic and atheistic and who had a real dislike for Christians (which I really, really understood) and said, “Pray with all you’re might that we find that key! I don’t care what you believe, but I tell you a miracle from God is all that can save us now!” I walked off and began searching for the key, feeling heavy hearted and desperate, praying over and over in desperation, begging God to help me find the key, and to prove to me that He is real, and use the opportunity to demonstrate His power to my friend. I spent about an hour or 2 going up and down looking everywhere, scanning the sands like a hawk. Thoughts of, “what now” ran through my head, I had never spoken up about God in that manner with him before. I respected his views and he respected mine as far as religion was concerned; he had often said our friendship would end if I ever tried to preach to him. Finally, defeated, I turned and headed back towards my friend, feeling rather furious that God had failed me yet again. I found myself once again questioning whether God really is real… if He didn’t even help me now, after all that… did He care?

As my friend came into sight, he spotted me coming towards him and he ran over to meet me. The next minute he threw something at me. I caught it… it was the car keys!!! When I realised he had found it, we broke out into celebration and cheer! We must have seemed like a couple of mad men to everyone else, but we didn’t care.

He explained that the life guards were about to leave, so he had asked one of them whether they had maybe found a car key. Unfortunately they hadn’t, but while we continued to search, one of the life guards happened to mention it to one of his lifeguard friends (on an earlier shift). It turned out that his friend had found the key, had asked around but not found the key’s owner, and had left it in their watch tower. So finally he found my friend and asked my friend to describe to him what the key looked like, before handing it over. That had happened just before I returned feeling defeated. After the celebration, on our way back home, my friend commented: “Seriously, if I spend enough time with you, I will surely become a Christian…”

Sadly, after that road trip, we just drifted further and further apart, our lives too busy and too different to keep in contact with each other. I haven’t spoken to him in years now. At that time, I was tempted again to write everything off as co-incidence and a lot of good luck, but now, looking back at the circumstances, I can’t doubt Gods involvement. He answered my prayers, not in the way I wanted them answered (I hoped I would find the keys, to use it as a powerful testimony, and was annoyed that it ended up taking over 2 hours and all that stress), but in His own way God answered them. I pray these days that at some point in time, that memory may be a significant push at my friend’s back, to seek a relationship with Jesus. As for myself, it was as real “Peter” moment, and I can just ‘hear’ Jesus saying the lines, “Yee of so little faith, why did you doubt?”