The Father Who Caught Her Every Time

In 2011, a four-year-old named Ellie Farmer stood at the edge of the community pool in Bend, Oregon, trembling. Her father, waist-deep in the water, held out his arms. "Jump, Ellie. I'll catch you." She jumped — not gracefully, not confidently — but she jumped. And he caught her. She climbed out and jumped again. And again. Fourteen times that afternoon, each leap a little less hesitant, each landing secure in the same steady hands.

What Ellie never saw was what her father was doing beneath the surface. His feet were planted wide on the pool floor, bracing against her momentum. His legs burned from the effort. Every catch looked effortless from above, but below the waterline, he was working — absorbing the force of every clumsy, flailing leap so she would never feel the sting of hitting the water alone.

Jude closes his letter with a breathtaking declaration: God is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before His glorious presence with great joy. After twenty-three verses warning about false teachers, moral compromise, and spiritual danger, Jude does not end with fear. He ends with a Father whose arms have never failed.

You are not kept by the strength of your grip. You are kept by the steadiness of His. The One who holds you is the same One who holds glory, majesty, dominion, and authority — before all time and now and forever. Every stumble you feared would be your last? He was already bracing for the catch.