Thursday, February 19, 2015

The Advantage of Wooden Ships

The old days of wooden sailing vessels bring back fond memories of salt air and slow delivery. An order from the back of a cereal box involved the ancient art of waiting 4-6 weeks for your parcel to arrive; probably to give them time to make the ship. Actually, the advantage of sailing vessels that came to mind this morning was the day of no wind. A becalmed sailing ship could make no progress save where an ocean current might lead. The master of the ship might have sailors swab the decks a few times, take a swim if any were so inclined, or mend some gear, but eventually the crew came to the point of nothing to do. Today, we avoid this with all our might through entertainment, study, exercise, work, and other tasks of a busy nature. The advantage they had back in that day was in an enforced nothing at times.

In this age, we have to imagine say a week off work combined with a week-long power outage...and some sorry jerk broke in and swiped all the batteries, even the ones in the devices. The car keys are missing, the truck won't start, and the phone is dead. We have quite a few potential distractions to quiet time! Nothing to do looms before us, boredom, ennui, oh, the dreadful quiet! A day of nothing to do might just force us to get alone with God and listen for His still, small voice the prophet heard way back in biblical times. Why should we be forced to this extreme? Well, because we tend toward the busy so much, as though quiet is the name of a monster chasing us to our death by work. A bit of enforced quiet time brings the Christ-one closer to the Lord.

Have a beautiful day in Christ Jesus!
Bucky

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