It is hard to believe that once it was a common belief that the world was flat. If you sailed off into the blue foam, you would meet your doom falling off the edge of the world and plunge in to Lord knows what. It was proven that the world was round and the fear of sailing off and over the edge is now more of a child’s understanding or imagination run wild.
I was told in so many words by those that I once looked to for leadership that my life would come crashing down at the edge of the world should I seek the horizon. In fact in my embarkment to find my own horizon and not the harbor where they lay, I was told the eventual destination was my worst nightmare. I have found that supposition to also be a child’s tale. I have come back from that horizon with my own story and it is one of wonder, adventure and so many things worth sailing for.
You might ask what was my harbor? It was a ‘church’ and I use that word loosely. Run by a metaphorical Captain Queeg who lived in suspicion, intrigue and general paranoia. What it really boiled down to I believe was insecurity. That someone other that himself could hear from God. That initiative could come from outside his own imagination and aspiration. You see that harbor was not picturesque and serene but a place where ships suffered wreckage of self, family and all the aspects of a normal life. In fact, it is no harbor at all but a graveyard of wreckage and as time rolls on, it becomes more apparent that if one stays, the end does not come as sailing off into the blue and horribly plunging but a slow, leaking death that drains all hope, will and self identity in the name of a God that is not Christian at all.
This blog entry is my bread upon the water to those still in that harbor of death. Don’t you understand that ships, your ship, is not meant to stay in harbor that is a mainstay and respite but your life is among the free sea and the ever expanding horizon. You are not doing what you were born for at all but sit anchored and in a slowly mundane and bobbing death. I have come back to tell you, to whisper to you, there is life on the high sea, adventure on the high sea, and the fulfillment of things you have not yet imagined are in store.
Let me give you an example. I am 63 years old now. In the harbor what I would be told pretty much would go like this: ‘ we appreciate your service but realistically, you are too old to really contribute so just hang in there and we will try to find something fo you to do’ . How many of you wait on something from the lips of the captain, a man, as if it were the voice of God. It is not. It is not even close. Well, back to my example. I stand here at 63 with an opportunity to venture out on a completely new venue in my life professionally. Your church and the world would probably say I was crazy and that is an improbable thing….but here I sit.
I stand on the deck of my ship looking at a horizon without limits, I can hardly catch a breath or hold a thought in my head. My journey’s path and even my destination are uncertain. Yet I tell you THIS IS WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT! To stand at the helm and to point my ship in the direction I am led to follow not knowing the outcome. What a blessing. What a life. This is the life of faith. I am not a young man but God gives me wind in my sail and my heart is now a twenty year old’s with hope and expectation and uncertainty . It is outside the harbor of deterioration and entropy. It is doing what I was born and intended to do. If you read Bible carefully you will conclude that there is nothing that ever happened in a harbor that was of any consequence. But on the sea, there were miracles, many of them.
The life is out there and the harbor you really seek is not the one you are in now. There is only the endless waiting, inactivity and mind numbing marching in time….just look busy. My daughter years ago made shadow box for me for Christmas. In it there is a picture of an immigrant Mom and Dad with a little son pointing to the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island. There is a key in that shadowbox and a scripture:
“…they are seeking a country of their own….as it is they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for He has prepared a city for them…”
My little girl is grown up now and has a family of her own as my son. Their ships lie still lie in that harbor I left years ago, Perhaps they are told that they are something other than a ship or that they are in no seaworthy state to venture out only under their leaders’ sanction. But the fact remains, they are doing the exact opposite of what they were born for.
I have come back to tell them, do not listen to the lie that the earth is flat. There is no hellish maelstrom waiting for them out of harbor and on the high seas. Will there be storms and peril? Oh yes, but you will be living in the adventure of your own life, your own path and not what someone told you to be.
I have seen hope on the high seas and adventures to last many lifetimes. You see, it is the way of faith. We were not meant to live in a harbor because the world is not flat.
