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Gravity and Grace — Under the Ice

This episode introduces Gravity and Grace, a book by David Burnell, and opens with the pivotal experience that inspired the book. In Under the Ice, Burnell recounts a real rescue operation that became a defining moment in his life. With visibility gone and pressure mounting beneath the ice, training, experience, and determination were no longer enough. What mattered most in that moment was not how hard he could push forward—but whether he would listen. The quiet warning he received during that dive changed how Burnell understood obedience, decision-making, and personal revelation. That moment became the foundation for Gravity and Grace, a book centered on the tension between responsibility and restraint, strength and surrender, and the grace that meets people when they stop striving and begin listening. This chapter serves as both the book's opening and a window into its central theme: learning to hear God clearly when life feels heavy and the way forward is uncertain. It is not just a story about a rescue—it is about identity, humility, and the courage required to step back when everything says to press on. For listeners new to this work, this chapter offers a meaningful introduction. For those already familiar, it marks the beginning of the journey. Written Story: Mortality has gravity. Not the cute, metaphorical gravity we use in talks because it sounds poetic. I mean the real kind—the weight that presses on your chest when the world gets loud, when the future gets foggy, when you’re trying to be brave but your body is already acting like it knows something your pride won’t admit yet. Sometimes that weight shows up as anxiety. Sometimes it shows up as anger. Sometimes it shows up as that steady, private exhaustion no one sees because you’re still smiling and still showing up and still saying, “I’m fine.” And sometimes… it shows up as two feet of ice between you and air. I learned something about resilience under the ice in South Dakota—something I’ve never forgotten—because that day I wasn’t the hero people imagine when they hear “rescue diver.” I wasn’t standing tall on a podium collecting praise. I was just a man with a mission, trapped inside a moment of pressure, trying to decide whether I was going to obey the Spirit or obey the story I was telling myself. The call It was April at Sheridan Lake outside Rapid City. The ice was thick—about two feet—but it wasn’t trustworthy ice. You could feel that when you walked in. The kind of ice that looks solid until it decides it isn’t. Two twin brothers—eighteen or nineteen years old—were out there with a dune buggy rail, jumping pressure ridges like the lake was a playground. And then the lake swallowed them. I was on a trail when my radio and my pager went off. I was dehydrated, tired, and not expecting a life-and-death decision before the day was over. Half our dive team was out of town. I was an instructor for Dive Rescue International and vice president of the local team, which sounds impressive until you realize it means: when things go sideways, people look at you. By the time I got to the scene, I watched a Boy Scout troop forming a human chain from solid ice to the hole in the ice, grabbing one of the brothers who had surfaced after about four minutes. That brother lived. The other one didn’t come up. And time was doing what time always does in emergencies—moving too fast and too slow at once. The dive team didn’t get rolling until almost fifty-five minutes into the incident. In the old days, an hour was when rescue often shifted into recovery. But the medical direction that day pushed us longer. We stayed in rescue mode. More urgency. More pressure. More risk. And then came my decision: do I stay on the surface and manage divers, or do I go under? With senior divers out of town and only a few operational people available, I chose to dive. That choice wasn’t just tactical. It was personal. It was identity. It was the story: I’m the leader. I’m the instructor. I’m the one who goes. And that story, if you’re not careful, will get you killed. Black water Under-ice diving is called overhead diving. It’s not recreational. It’s not a fun story to tell later. It’s the abyss, even at sixty feet, because it doesn’t take much for your mind to understand this truth: If something goes wrong, you don’t get to swim straight up to the air. The first diver went down. His name was Jerry. He surfaced after about five minutes, eyes rolling back, unconscious—no words, no explanation. We loaded him on a gurney, then a four-wheeler, and hauled him across the ice to an ambulance waiting two miles away. Jerry never dove again. The second diver—Rob—was one of the bravest men I’ve ever worked with. He had issues with his mouthpiece fitting. We would modify his gear so he could dive anyway. He was tough like that—quiet courage. But when Rob came up, he said only this: “It’s no good. It’s no good. It’s no good.” The...