Sailing into a new year

I have an analogy for life in this new year that I am liking, and that is challenging me. It is the picture of seeing our relationship with God as being a big galleon out on the ocean. The ocean is life - limitless, expansive, and overwhelming at times. And the big ship, with masts pointing to the sky, and giant sails catching the wind, is us.

Every one of us has a uniquely different ship. As I sail mine, I find a bunch of lessons facing me as I look at the horizon of a new year. This is a unique place that Papa has me in. At the moment, the sails are up, and the wind is dead. There is nothing moving the ship - I find myself waiting for a breeze. Sometimes I think that I am a fool for having every sail I have drooping in the dead air. It looks like I am pretty hopeful for this new year. It also looks like the sails are up for no reason. Maybe they offer shade more than anything else.

In the dead calm it gets mighty tempting to go below and fire the engine up. Historically that is what I have done when the wind dies down. There is a voice in my head that says I am stupid for waiting for a wind that may never come. I tell myself sometimes that it just makes more sense to be going somewhere - even if it is the wrong way and under my own power - than it does to wait on a God who may or may not breathe on my life.

The other thing that happens in the windless season is that I look off the bow of the boat and wonder if the waves I see there far below are water or sand. If those waves are solid ground, I really will be a fool for thinking any amount of wind could move my ship.

Faith tells me to leave the giant sails hanging in the sky. It also tells me to trust that sooner or later the wind will blow. Faith says to hang onto the belief that the boat is still in the water, and that those are waves of billowing sea foam and not crests of blowing sand I see below me. Faith says that Papa wants to teach me as much in the dead calm as He does in the season ahead when the wind will blow mightily.

I don't know if my analogy for 2009 makes any sense to anybody but me. Maybe it isn't supposed to. I know that I have a lot to do in managing the affairs of my ship, and that I want to walk in faith that He is ultimately the captain.

So Lord, may this year be a mighty sailing year, full of adventure and new horizons. And more than anything, may You be glorified by the way I sail.