Proverbs 3:7-8 The Ship of Our Lives

Proverbs 3:7-8 "Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones."

    Some while ago on my daily drive to and from work I saw a lovely wooden sail boat, almost a small yacht, on its trailer  at a curve in the road with a big "For Sale" sign on it. The cost was pretty decent too! Knowing that one of my friends was really interested in boating, boats, and the life aquatic, I told him about it and he went to look at it. The next time I had the occasion to talk to him about it, he told me he wouldn't even think about buying that boat, let alone sail on it anywhere. The reason the price was so low, was that the current owner had not used it in years and had not maintained the maintenance on it. Oh, sure, the outside was gleaming and polished and wonderful and the insides had been exquisitely cleaned, organized, and everything was ship-shape, but the wood itself had most likely not been taken care of properly. The boat, not being sailed much and not being maintained to sailing conditions, was probably rotting under the glistening coat of varnish over the wood.  That is one of the problems with wood boats, they have to be maintained and examined thoroughly every year to ensure that the wood is not rotting or getting wood or termite infested, if those inspections are not done, the rest of the ship might look great, but at some point while you are sailing that lovely looking boat, the wood itself will break or rot and the boat will sink, it may not happen the first or second or third trip you take, but eventually it will.

    Our lives are like that wooden yacht. We polish our lives up and proudly sail around showing off the clean lines and the taught sails. Our amenities below-decks are excellent, with all the comforts of home, but if we don't take care of our hearts, if we aren't taking care of our spiritual lives, then our wooden hull and the framing on which everything is built is most likely rotting away underneath the veneer of perfectness which we cling to.  It doesn't take much either for the rot to begin: one missed inspection, once missed prayer time, maybe not being as careful in our daily walk as possible, or just being in a hurry and feeling like we have so much to do, so what if we let this one little thing lapse - after all the wood is treated and varnished! Once the rot begins only God - our master shipbuilder - can remove it. It isn't cheap to remove the rotten sections and replace it with good wood, and our lives are no different. A lot of work and pain and struggle is involved in fixing the rot in our lives, and God might excise a large portion of our hull, do a lot of what we think is damage to us, just to get everything that we have allowed to happen cleaned out. If we catch it early though it is a small repair, a small fix - maybe only one plank or board. If we wait too late the frame of our lives will have to be disassembled and rebuilt.

    Fearing God, trusting God, obeying God, following God are things we need to focus on. He knows what our lives are about, and He knows how to keep up afloat and buoyant. As long as we keep His commands, not just out of rote memorization but with fervor, hanging on His every word and trying with all our heart to follow Him, then our lives will find themselves clean and ship-shape, not just visibly so but even in the depths of the frame and hull.

    This week, lets evaluate our lives, not just on the surface, but deeper, delving into our very heart, searching for the places we have let things slide, or go, where rot has started, and lets ask God to show us these places and how to fix them! This week, lets refresh ourselves and refocus on His word anew!