Week Forty-Five - Life on the Sea

Beside the Well

            Some days it feels like my whole world is at the mercy of the sea of life. I am just a little boat adrift in the midst. The waves of life hit me from every side.  Unwelcome news blows in from every techno porthole.  Each thing I try to anchor down comes untethered, and I lose my moorings.

            I used to go to bed and hide when the waves got too rough.  Now, praise the Lord, I have matured to the point that I can, more often than not, stand on the deck and let the salty water slap my face without losing my grip.

            Today was one of those days when my ship felt the crash of an unwelcome wave.  This drove me to prayer and then to look for the breeze that would blow from the Spirit to drive me to a more solid path.  And, the Lord was true to His word.  Here is where He placed me—Malachi 3:6  “I am the Lord, I change not.”

            Spurgeon wrote, “The delight that the mariner feels when, after having been tossed about for many days, he steps again on the solid shore is the satisfaction of a Christian when, amid all the changes of this stormy life, he rests the foot of his faith on this truth.  The stability that the anchor gives the ship when it has at last obtained a holdfast is like that which the Christian’s hope affords him when it fixes itself on this glorious truth – ‘with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning’ (James 1:17).  The wheel of providence revolves, but its axle is eternal love.”

            I could imagine the sailor stepping out of the boat onto solid ground after a night of hard rowing at sea.  And, my mind could picture the wheels of providence—the wheels of life that are beyond our control—speeding us down the road of life with its many turns, but also the truth of the axle. 

            Wheels cannot turn without the axle.  Life has one axle, one true anchor—the love of God, which is not swayed by the curves in the road or the lilt of the sea.  He is our solid rock, our safe retreat, our hiding place, and the anchor of our soul in the face of every storm. 

            My heart began singing that old song of the faith; We Have an Anchor.  How blessed we are to know we can live fastened to the unmoveable Rock, that we are grounded firm and deep in His love, no matter how high the billows roll.

            So bring it on!  I love a stout breeze!