LIFEBOAT OR DRIFTWOOD
Consider the difference between lifeboats and driftwood: driftwood are branches that have fallen off trees and eventually washed ashore, while lifeboats are designed and built for the specific purpose of going out to find and rescue people.
Whether we see ourselves as a well-used lifeboat or as a weather-beaten piece of driftwood, we can sometimes feel adrift in a sea of uncertainty about tomorrow. Unexpected life events like life-changing illness and disability, divorce, and the death of a loved one, have a way of showing up and turning our lives topsy-turvy, making it easier to just go with the flow in a state of resignation. We do our best to pull ourselves together with a stoic resolution just to avoid sinking. Even when life hits the high notes, we know that the spark of joy has gone out.
But does God know?
Let’s look at these provocative words from the book of Ecclesiastes. There are no polite overtures, no mincing of words. It is what it is - a vexatious cry of one man that reverberates in the human soul that there must be more to life than just managing well and telling people ‘I’m fine. Thank you for asking’.
We want you to know that God sees right through us: He knows when the best we can do is a perfunctory existence. The old hymn that goes like this, ‘Great is thy faithfulness…, morning by morning new mercies I see’, reminds us of this truth because it can be hard to see when the daily goal is simply to achieve normalcy or a semblance of it.
God wants to do something new in and through your life,
so others around you will also be renewed.’
- Pastor Beatrice Kang
Our life purpose has to be greater than just experiencing life and going through the motions. There is nothing new from Monday to Sunday. Nothing new from one life stage to another that other people have not experienced. But God wants to do something new in and through your life, so others around you will also be renewed.
The God-designed purpose for all humans is to be lifeboats. You may feel that you have drifted, bottomed out, or dried up your resilience, but the life-giving power of the Word of God will repurpose you for good.
Though outwardly – in our life experience and health issues - we are wasting away,
yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
2 Cor 4:16 [paraphrased]
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:
the old has gone, the new is here!
2 Cor 5:17
If you see yourself like driftwood, let God repurpose your personal mission as a lifeboat – first for yourself, and then for those around you.
If you feel like a lifeboat that is sinking, drifting or spinning out of control, you’re in good company: BeInReach Ministry wants to help you receive God’s hope as an anchor to keep your soul firm and secure (Hebrews 6:19).
Leave a comment below to let us know where you feel you are right now. Or get in touch to find out how you can join us each week – wherever you are!
