The man, whom renowned Christian evangelist, Billy Graham expressed “I think he had personally touched more lives than anybody that I have ever known” is Dawson Trotman, founder of the Christian organization, The Navigators, whose focus is “to know Christ Jesus and to make Him known.” But Dawson Trotman is not only known for his life but for his death as well.
The July 2, 1956 issue of the Time Magazine in its opening paragraph of the article entitled “Religion: The Navigator” was as follows – “Dawson Trotman clambered back into a motorboat one day last week after two hours of waterskiing on Schroon Lake, N.Y. He was dog-tired, but before he settled down he asked one of the two girls in the boat, Allene Beck, if she could swim; when she shook her head, he traded places with her so she would be in a safer spot. Minutes later the speeding boat bounced on a wave, and both of them, the 50-year-old man and the girl, shot into the water. He swam to her and held her head above water until the boat could circle back and she was hauled aboard. But as hands reached down to seize Trotman’s hand, he sank out of sight.” Dawson Trotman died by drowning, as he saved the life of another in the throes of death. The caption under his picture in the article appropriately summed up his life as it read “Always Holding Someone Up.” The article also aptly concluded with “He lived to save others” and “His death was just the way he would have planned it.”
Dawson’s life and death emulated the mind of Christ as expressed in Philippians 2. Jesus lived and died to save others; you and me and he expects us to do the same. The expression of great love is where one lays down his life for another. True love is expressed in not allowing others to sink into the miry pit of sin and death, but holding them up so that they can be reconciled with God. True and great love is summarily “Always Holding Someone Up.”
Points to ponder
1. Can it be said of our life, that we lived to save others?
2. Can it be said of you and me, that we are “Always Holding Someone Up?”
John 15:13 (KJV)
13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
