I’ve always been intrigued by sailboats. I think that they are brilliant inventions. They directly take an energy source that can be attributed to nothing other than the power of God in order to move across the sea to reach desired destinations. The fastest sailboat ever recorded went as quick as 65.45 knots. (That’s over 75 mph for those of us who desire to stay on solid and dry ground.) It seems intuitive that sailboats can travel with the wind at their backs, but a skilled captain can harness wind blowing in any direction in order to get wherever they need to go. It is only when there is a lack of any wind that a sailboat will become unable to move. 

One of the most impressive built with the most advanced engineering in the industry is the “Black Pearl” (not from the movie). It is 350 feet long and complete with three masts each over 200 feet tall. The ship has the ability to travel across the globe using energy solely harnessed by the wind. It is an impressive invention. Yet none of its advanced technology and no amount of skill found in its captain causes the sails to fill and propel the ship with no wind. There is little that we can do to cause the wind to blow, but we can set the sail. When winds do come, there must be a ship in the water, that can withstand the waves, a captain with enough skill to pilot the ship, and sails that are set and raised in order to catch the wind. Otherwise, winds will come and the opportunity for movement will be lost. 

We Want to Move… Even when there is no wind

If you’re taking the time to read this article I assume that you want to see God do great work. I would assume that you want to see and experience God moving in big ways. That is a good thing. As Christians, we know that God has things that He is accomplishing. He is at work in us, causing our sanctification, growth, Christ-likeness. He is doing work all around us, accomplishing great things and bringing glory to His name. And yet if we are honest, sometimes we want to see God do more. We want to see him move and it may seem to us as if He isn’t. We desire faster growth, deeper maturity, we want to become more like Christ, and we want it now. There is a desire to move. And sometimes it seems like there is no movement, no progress, as though there is no wind moving us forward. 

Pray for Wind

You can try as hard as you like, but you will never create real wind that leads to progressive movement on your own. Likewise, we cannot force ourselves to grow, we cannot force God to accomplish something according to our wishes. Maybe you have a coworker that you desperately desire to be saved. You cannot make that work happen. Maybe you’re looking for restoration in your family, again nothing you can do will fix the issue with finality. Of course, there are steps to take, and things to do that will be beneficial. Some things you do may even appear to fix problems temporarily, but in the end, we are entirely dependent upon the grace of God. 

A passage from “The Sailors Prayer Book” 1852 reads, “Surely God Almighty, ever-present, is alone fit for a sailor’s refuge. We may by care and skill be able to trim our ship, to steer our course, or to keep our reckoning; but we cannot control the winds, or subdue deceitful currents, or prevent disasters.” God is going to do what He is going to do. We must realize that. Then pray earnestly that he would cause the wind to blow to accomplish His work that we desire.

Raise Your Sails

We cannot create wind, but we can and must be faithful to set our sails. Sometimes we will wait for a long time to see the movement and work of God that we desire. Although there is nothing we can do to force God to work in a way and time frame that matches our own plans we better do all that we can to be prepared.

Are you remaining humble? Do you stay where you know God wants you? Then when He sends the wind to push you forward you’re there to catch it? Are you learning what you can so that when it comes time to captain your life you have the skills and knowledge to know whether to turn to the right or to the left? Remember that coworker that you desire to come to faith in Jesus? You cannot force them to be interested in Christ. But it’d be a shame if the day comes where they have a question about God and you are ill-prepared. 

2 Peter 1:10. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling, election, if you practice these qualities you’ll never fall.

A Word of Warning

Just to be clear doing these things doesn’t mean that the wind will blow. You must live the entirety of your life absolutely and desperately dependant for God to come through. Live needing God to show himself strong, because the fact is we just will not be able to do it on our own. Even if we could is that the journey we want? A journey full of self-determination and your own strength sounds empty and lonely to me. Striving for righteous living is not a way to trick God into getting you where you want to be, but if the wind blows and the sail is not up There is no doubt that effectiveness may be lost. 

Reaching Our Destination

Years ago I got the chance to go sailing on Lake Superior. The large boat seemed to move effortlessly through the water, but eventually, we found ourselves drifting aimlessly. There was no wind to be found. No matter how high we raised the mast or which direction our experienced and skilled captain turned the sail we were getting nowhere. We could have brought the sail down and given up. If so we would have had to stay there until late December when we could trek back into Bayfield on the ice. But we didn’t instead we set the sail and waited for the wind to return bringing us where we needed to be. 

Let’s be sure that we do our part, let’s “have our sail set’ so that when God does the work that He will do we are ready. If we fail to do so, the wind will still blow. He will get His ship where He desires, but what will our part be? Will we be holding on for dear life as the ship is tipped over and pushed by the waves. Will we find ourselves screaming as we bounce off every rock possible on the way? Or maybe find that the voyage took far longer than necessary because we didn’t follow a straight path and instead went from port to port wasting valuable time.  

Or will we, having done our part, set our sails and our sight focused on the direction and destination God has for us. If we are prepared we will find joy in being able to participate in the work He does. God has his children on a grand adventure. Be diligent to set the sails and enjoy the trip. 

A quick google search will find you 2,880 different “world records” for different balancing acts. You’ll find thousands of desperate attempts at fame such as: “longest time on balance beam while also singing and playing the ukulele” (3 minutes 35 seconds) or “most hockey pucks balanced on the forehead” (31) and even “longest time balancing a running lawnmower on chin” (3 minutes 34 seconds). Many of the attempts at balancing are rather pathetic, but a few are actually quite impressive. Some people have even become world famous for their incredible feats of balance. Philippe Petit, for example, wowed onlookers by crossing between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974.

You may not have ever found yourself with a ridiculous amount of hockey pucks on your forehead or shaken in fear of tipping off the high wire and falling to your death, but have you ever had more to do than time to do it? Have you ever had so many things vying for your attention that you didn’t know which way to turn? So many responsibilities and passions that you didn’t know where to place your concentration? It’s easy for your life to begin to feel like an intricately complicated balancing act far more difficult than holding up a hockey puck because you are trying to balance all the different aspects of your life all of which are unique in their size, weight, and shape. How are you supposed to hold up your work, family life, church involvement, time spent with God, hobbies, duties at home, and maintain your social life all at the same time?

That was the question I recently heard asked, “how are you to balance all of the different parts of your life?” How much do you put into your school work or how much effort do you put into your job in order to do it well, but not get lost in it and to still have time for God? I’ve been there with all the different parts of my life precariously propped up by my varying amounts of time and effort, everything carefully stacked upon each other. The problem was that if a little bit of effort was diverted somewhere else or time spent on the wrong thing that perfect balance that was holding everything up would be thrown off and everything would fall crashing down in a mess causing a domino effect of destruction. So what are we to do?

Stop the Balancing Act

Stop trying to get a perfect balance and exhausting yourself holding everything up. You can’t, at least not for long. The answer isn’t to divide up all you have and put 60% towards God, 20% towards work, 10% towards church, 5% into entertainment, and 5% into double checking your math to make sure you have all your percents. The Bible doesn’t speak in those terms. The Bible doesn’t divide our lives up like that as if each part is autonomous of the others. Instead, God says things like, “Seek first the Kingdom of God” and “Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, mind, and soul.”  We are to go all in on God. 100% of all that we have, all of our time, all of our effort, all of our love, all of our mind, and all of our body go to God. That’s the perfect balance. It all goes to Him.

Our lives are not intended to be lived out as a conglomerate of individual self-sustained parts. If you are a Christian, you do not get to have different lives: church life, work life, social life, and family life. You have one life and all of those seemingly separate aspects of your life are all linked together. And all of them should be driven by your relationship with God. When you give God all that you have, all of those different parts come together to form the whole. That is when they all can be sustained.

When God is in control of all we have we can give everything else the attention that it needs. It isn’t as though we now don’t go to work, or take care of our homes, or spend time with family, but In giving everything to God He will then direct the rest of our lives. The Bible says that if we seek first the kingdom of God He will take care of everything else.

Colossians 3:23 states whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men. This breaks down the separation of life categories we tend to create. If we give God 100%, that means how we function at school and work, how we interact with friends and family, what we do at church and how we serve all flow out of our relationship with God. Now instead of struggling through trying to decide for yourself how to operate in all these areas, you ask God what He would have you do in those situations. He is in control of it all and seeks to be glorified in every aspect of your life, so you can bet that He will direct you through it all.

Think of those old school balances with a plate to hold weights on either side. As you add more weight to one plate, the other goes up, take weight from one and the other goes down. Now imagine one of those with enough plates to represent each area of your life. You can carefully distribute all that you have evenly trying to keep any from falling, desperate to keep everything in the air and not leave one neglected. But as things change and grow you will constantly have to be adjusting.  You will constantly have to be adding to and taking away to keep everything in the air. Or, instead, you could put all the weight, all the time, all the efforts, all of who you are squarely in the middle of the plate for God. There will be no fear of anything moving, no fear of anything crashing to destruction because everything is being held up by what you have given to God.

God calls us to a lot. He has a lot for us to do and to consider. If you try to figure it all out on your own you will fail, you will not be able to hold everything up in perfect balance indefinitely. So do not even try, instead give it all to God. Not because you want Him to uphold all those other areas of your life. Not so he can help you succeed at work, school, and church. Give it all to Him because He is worth it. He already gave it all to you.   

A few weeks ago I was able to travel with our Duluth missions team to Kentucky where we did some extensive work on the foundation of a building. Over the years the foundation of this building had shifted several inches leading to severe compromise of the structure and safety of the building. Simply stated, buildings are not supposed to move and when they do there will inevitably be problems.

You know that the Christian life is one of continual growth, moving forward, continuing to change more and more into the image of Jesus. Christians lives should never be static, yet there is one way that we are to not move, one thing that we are to stand firm upon keeping us unchanging and unwavering. Everything in this world will be moved, everything will change, shift, and waver. There is only one thing that will last and that is the truth of God. We are to be built immovable upon the truth of Jesus Christ. What we are building upon is not to be just words, theories, or human philosophies, but upon Christ himself.

1 Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” We are commanded to be immovable and that can seem to be a daunting task when we consider the world that we live in. It seems as though everything around us is pushing and pulling at our hearts and lives. Our worldly desires pull us away from God, the storms and difficulties try to push us down; and yet we are to stand unshaken and unwavering. We are to remain steadfast for our Lord. How can that be possible? The prior verse has the answer. 1 Corinthians 15:57, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

We are to build our lives upon the rock of Jesus Christ, you know that, but have you?

We can remain steadfast because of God, because of the victory He provides in Christ. God stabilizes our lives. He takes us from going up and down and all over the place to standing firm in Him. He says that we are no longer to be like a wave tossed about too and fro. We are to build our lives upon the rock of Jesus Christ, you know that, but have you? That is the question you have to answer, have you really built you entire life upon Him? Will the problems and pleasure of this life cause you to drift, to be thrown about, to lose the firm foundation that you thought you had? Or will you weather the storm?

It is easy to start well, to began upon that rock of Christ, but then carelessly drift away. Sometimes we think we are standing strong, but really the only reason we haven’t moved is because the right pressure has not yet been applied. What will it take to get you to move? The right job, the right spouse, the right house, the right adventure? If you really know Christ as your strength, none of that will matter. You will not be shaken. You will not be budged from God, His plans for you, the church He has placed you in no matter what happens.

Psalm 62:6 “He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.”
Psalm 125:1 “Those who trust in the LORD Are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever.”
Proverbs 10:31 “The righteous will never be shaken”

Are these verses really true of you? Can you confidently say that you will not be moved because of your trust in Him and what He has done?

So how are we to do this, how can we really become steadfast, immovable, resolute, trusting our Lord? The answer is NOT to try really hard not to move, to flex our muscles, plant our feet, and dig in. This will surely eventually end in failure.

We are to know Him. If we do not know our savior, we do not know what we are to build upon. We are to know His word. His truths are the one thing we have to hold unto in this world that will not change. We obey Him and see Him come through for us time after time. We are to do it together, because it is a lot easier if we are not standing alone. Above all, and really the only answer that matters, we need to love God. If we love Him, above and beyond anything else, nothing will be able to remove us from Him.

Circumstances do not matter. When the earth and sky is falling away, when everyone around you is panicking, when the winds and waves our crashing all around you, when everything in your life seems to be falling apart our God remains sovereignly enthroned; and our God wins.

I’ve been around long enough now to see people moved, people that at one time seemed immovable. I thought they would remain steadfast to the end, but they didn’t. Their lives were built upon a rock of empty religious devotion and fleeting emotions. The foundation looked strong. The rock looked right, but in the end turned out to be hollow. No amount of trying to patch up that hollow rock would suffice. No, the only real fix is just like the fix to the falling building in Kentucky. The old foundation needs to be smashed to bits and removed, allowing no part of it to remain, and in turn replaced with the new unfailing rock of Jesus Christ.