Sailing Through Life Takes Faith

Scripture Reading

Ephesians 4:13-14

13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.

Devotional

I don’t know if you’ve ever been sailing or watched people who compete in sailboat racing, but it’s not some peaceful experience. It’s pretty chaotic and requires a great deal of skill and maintenance to align your boat and sails just right to head in the direction you need to go. For optimum performance, you really need a crew and each person is playing a different role, but the “driver” has the final say as to what the crew needs to do. That also means that the driver/captain has to be aware of what’s going on and have the knowledge and experience to make the right call. One bad decision could capsize the ship or cause it to be tossed back and forth while it’s trying to recover. So, going back to the scripture in Ephesians 4, we see that that we all need to mature and have knowledge such that we are not tossed off course by other teachings.

In fact, the only way we can make “good” calls is by understanding who God is, studying his Word, and by spending time with him in prayer. Additionally, we need the support of fellow believers on our ship to point out when we make a bad call, so that it can be corrected. In fact, it’s God’s intent that we maintain close relationships with other believers for many reasons, but one such reason is because we need people to help us through trials when we stumble and fall. Not only to get back up, but to encourage us to keep on walking in faith. Ecclesiastes 4:10 says:

10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

When I read Ephesians 4:13-14, I was reminded of what it was like during the first and thankfully also the last time I decided to take a sailing lesson. It was terrible. The boat was swaying back and forth so hard. I had a hard time getting the sails trimmed correctly. The “driver” was another student who had no idea what was going on and was haphazardly steering the boat and overcorrecting in each direction. I was getting super sea sick and the whole experience was pretty awful for me. We may have had a good boat, a good navigation system, and consistent wind, but we were tossed every which way. The teachers finally had to intervene because it was getting a little dangerous. In many ways, this is very much like our spiritual lives. When we’re just baby Christians, we can easily be led astray or manipulated because we don’t know the Word of God. We haven’t spent enough time with God and the body of believers for our faith really take root and mature. Although we have the Holy Spirit as our compass or beacon to God, we may not always heed the advice or nudges from him. Meanwhile, God is like the wind in our sails. He gives us everything we need to go in the direction he intends for us to go, but sometimes we try to do things our own way. Sometimes we fight the wind or haphazardly steer and our boat ends up swaying dangerously in each direction. Maybe we even end up thrown out of the boat when the waves pick up. Fortunately, that’s where Jesus comes in, who is kind of like the rescue forces or Coast Guard ready to throw us a life line and pull us back onto the boat. See, the water in life will have periods of tranquility and periods of storms. We are not promised safe or easy travel, but we do know that the more we know God, the more we’ll know how to trim our sails and maneuver through that storm and in the direction God wants us to go in order to win the race. Let’s pray.

Prayer

Father God, thank you for being my guidance, rescue crew, and wind in my sails. I know that whether my life is smooth sailing at the moment or if it feels like the waves are going to capsize me, that you are with me, helping to direct me and saving me when I really mess up. Thank you for the reminder that faith is a journey and that journey or “race” doesn’t end until I meet you face to face in Heaven. Lord, help me to draw near to you and learn from my past experiences so I make increasingly better calls in life that align with your teachings and your will. In Jesus’ name, Amen.