An Island, A Boat, and A Lie

We had planned our trip to Peanut Island months in advance. And yes, you read that correctly. Peanut Island is its unfortunate name. They could've picked something much more grandiose, like Spearfish Island, or The Island of Legend. But, for some reason, they chose a small, awkwardly-shaped legume to label one of South Florida's most visited tourist spots. Fabulous. Anyway, we were taking high-schoolers from Youth for Christ out for a day of fun on the island.

I was in a speedboat watching high-schoolers get dragged around by a long rope connected to a tube. For some odd reason, people (myself included) love being thrown around in the waves with the target of having of fun and getting whiplash. In the moments when we had to stand completely still so that somebody could climb back on the boat after being thrown off the tube, I paid attention to the rocking of the boat.

It felt like I was moving it.

For some reason, whenever I get in a boat that's swaying in the tide of the water, it always feels like I'm the one that's making it move back and forth. As if my 145-pound, mayonnaise body somehow had the ability to influence the movement of a several ton boat. False. The moments I felt like my weight was influencing the swing of the boat were actually the moments where I had aligned myself to the independent swaying of the vessel.

And I was fooled into thinking it was my own doing.

"The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." (Proverbs 16)

One of the largest temptations I face is that I always think that I've brought myself to where I am. That I've pulled up my own bootstraps, so to speak. That in all of the major events in my life, I've swayed the boat in my favor. It turns out that the times when I thought I was swaying the boat the way I wanted it was actually God allowing His Hand to shape and mold the steps of my future.

For those times when things are going right, and you feel as if your life is headed where you want it to go, I plead with you to realize that it is not of your own doing. After all, how many other times in your life were you doing everything right, only to be met with the most opposing of circumstances.

Honor the Lord, and do not forget His arm stretches farther than you know.

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