Shipwrecked Faith

"...He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. The rest were to get there on planks or on other pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land safely."
Acts 27:43-44

A complicated part of Christian theology is what many literary theorists have coined the "Doctrine of Contraries". The Doctrine of Contraries states that humans learn more from hardships than through easy times. If you need Biblical examples, read the stories of Job, Jonah, Hosea, David, Solomon, Daniel, John the Baptist, Paul, Timothy, and yes even Jesus Christ. If your walk is easy, I'd challenge you to go further. Dig a little deeper and go deep enough to where your feet can't touch the ground. NEEDTOBREATHE has a beautiful line in one of their songs that says, "There's only one way to figure out if You'll let me drown." And isn't that true? We can't know for sure that God will save us from drowning if we're standing on the beach.

Previously in the passage quoted above, God promised to Paul that no one that was on board with him would die. "But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost," (Acts 27:22). Of course Paul, in all of his finite human knowledge, did not know how this promise of God would come true. I think if I were Paul, I would see it happening in a much more common way: the ship lands and everyone gets off unharmed. But not so surprisingly, God used an unconventional way of following through with His promise. The ship completely wrecked. Paul and the men aboard saw an unrecognizable land and decided to aim for it to go aground if possible. On the way though they hit a sandbar. While stuck on the sandbar, the waves beat the stern until it shattered completely. The centurion on board this ship ordered everyone who could swim to jump ship and swim to shore and the rest to jump ship and grab onto debris...from their own ship...and paddle to shore. And as it says, "In this way everyone reached land safely," (Acts 27:44).

Thanksgiving 2014 will be an unforgettable one. Sarah and I decided that I should go up to New York to join her and her family for Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday). So, I and my van (kindly named the Swagger Wagon, often "The Wagon" for short) set out for our trek. I left my house in Virginia at around 5 in the morning so I could get to her house at around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. About 6 or 7 hours into my trip, in the thick of a nasty Nor'easter heading through, I hit a patch of ice or snow on the road going around a turn; I hit the mile marker 146.6. Turns out, I was just outside of a wonderful little town named Tamaqua in Pennsylvania. Tamaqua now has a large spot in my heart and forever will. As I began to learn more about what this wreck meant, I realized a few things. They told me they would most likely total the van because it would cost more to repair it given its age; I couldn't get a rental car because I'm not old enough (stupid rule, by the way); and there's no way I was going to see Sarah in a timely manner. So I'm in contact with my dad, the insurance company, and the Mattinglys (Sarah's family). The decision we finally land on is that the Mattinglys would drive from New York to come pick me up in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania (if you ever want to know about Christ's selfless spirit, spend 20 minutes with the Mattinglys). The trip from their home to me is about four and a half hours away. Well about an hour away from me, the Mattinglys (who included Mr. Mattingly, Sarah, and Justin) got clipped in the back by an 18-wheeler; another wreck. To paraphrase the rest of this story, they were able to eventually get a rental car, come pick me up in Tamaqua, and we stopped for the "night" in Justin's dorm room at Syracuse University (I say that in quotes because we got there around 2:30 in the morning and were back on the road at 6, so it was more like a rejuvenating nap). 

About ten minutes before my wreck, I said a silent prayer to God in my van. "God, I pray this trip is completely for Your glory and not for the enjoyment of Sarah and I." God has a funny way of taking control in situations. I don't want to fill this with my weekend with Sarah so I'll sum up how the weekend went: perfectly.

Sometimes God uses a shipwreck to save us. That's such a weird concept. God can destroy everything in your life in order to make things perfect. This isn't a mean or spiteful act, but one of love. God made it so that the men on Paul's ship literally used the broken pieces of their ship to swim to shore; and not a single life was lost!! So the question is: Will we let God wreck our ships? Are we in a spot in our faith where we're okay with God breaking the safety of our ship and saying, "Okay, child. Grab on to the pieces of what you once thought was your stability. I can take what is broken and make it save you,"? That's a scary question to answer. Can anyone ever really be okay with God destroying our "safety"? Yes, I think we can. But it takes a large amount of discipline. And an even larger amount of love.

How can we know that God won't let us drown? Easy. Put ourselves in a situation where without Him, we would drown. Let God's shipwreck save your life.