Josh and Troy are teenagers. Eager and foolish. Superheroes emerging from phone booths.

But, sailors they are not. Imagining new adventures, they leapt into the boat anyway, raised the sail, and headed from the Carolinas toward Spain. Then the riptide found them and changed their lives.

They waved to friends on the beach, frantically. The friends waved back, thinking the fellows were having a great sail. They waved harder, terrified now as the tide overwhelmed their sailing skills. Certain they would be lost if they stayed in the boat, they jumped into the Atlantic and swam toward shore.

Even teenage superheroes are no match for a Carolina riptide.

The boat went its way, and they went elsewhere. Drifting far off where shouting “HELP!” is useless. Where horizons have no land. Alone in the vast ocean. Remembering Castaway. Wishing for Wilson.

No food. No water. No SPF32. Just “water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.”

Five days passed and their parents began funeral plans. Six days passed before the call came from a distant fishing boat. “We have two boys, and they’re alive!”

America’s omnipresent reporters shouted questions toward the boys when they arrived at the fishing dock. “How did you survive?” “What did you think about?” “Were you worried about dying?” “What was it like?” They got superhero answers.

"We prayed,” they said. “We just prayed every day. We prayed earnestly. We prayed for our lives. We prayed for our families. We prayed to get home.”

“…And God answered.”

Sometimes I forget what’s important and I pray quick, short, common, un-thought-through, empty prayers. “Two-bit prayers,” one of my wise friends calls them.

But sometimes, like Troy and Josh, I pray million-dollar prayers, EARNEST prayers! Like I’m in an intense personal conversation with someone I love, someone who is leaning forward and concentrating on every word I think and say. Like this is the most important conversation of my day, and my week. Like this may be the most significant moment of my life!

I feel like I’m talking rescue with the True Superhero.

“I am with you,” He offers, “to rescue and save you” (Jeremiah 15:20).

Dick Duerksen is an assistant vice president for mission development at Florida Hospital