Your boat is the walls you build to keep people out. Your boat carries isolation and loneliness. Your boat carries a sense of hopelessness. Your boat carries distrust. Your boat produces unnoticed pain for you.
Imagine this:
You’re in your boat. It’s small, but big enough for everything you need. Nothing can hurt you when you’re in the boat; it’s safe. You don’t really have a reason to leave your safety. The boat is comfortable.
But there’s one issue. Whenever you encounter a storm your boat gets tossed around. In every storm you feel like you’re going to drown. You try to keep your things together and in your boat, but you can barely keep yourself in the boat. Water gets into your boat. You try to get it out before too much water gets in, but you start to sink. If you just hold on long enough the storm will pass. With each storm that comes, your boat becomes weaker. You fear the storm that tosses your boat, destroys it, and leaves you fighting for your life in the open water. You fear the day your boat doesn’t get through the storm.
There’s another option. You can step out of the boat. You can trust that the Prince of Peace will keep you from sinking and calm the storm. It sounds simple, and that’s because it is simple. The action of stepping out of the boat is simple. Trusting that you will not sink and drown when you climb into a raging sea, trusting that the sea that’s tossing you about will obey a simple command to be still, trusting that the man waiting to take you by the hand and walk you out of the storm will protect you and keep you safe is the hard part of stepping out of the boat.
The man waits outside your boat day after day. He waits in fair weather and rough seas alike. Everyday, He invites you to step out of the boat and walk with him. In fair weather, it’s illogical to get out of the boat that’s protecting you on the whim that you can walk on the water. In the raging sea, it’s utterly terrifying to contemplate what will happen if you were wrong about the man being able to keep you safe. He’s not pressuring you into a decision, just presenting you with freedom.
When you step out of your boat, you step into freedom. You walk hand-in-hand with the man that sacrificed his life so he could spend eternity with you. It isn’t all sunshine and rainbows; it’s not skipping along the calm water everyday. However, you can rest assured that you will NEVER go through a storm alone. When storms come your way, he leads you through them with mercy and kindness. When the wind pushes hard against you, when the rain is pelting you, when you can’t keep walking through the storm he carries you through. Your lifeguard is gentle. He does not rush you. He does not leave you. He does not make you stay in the storm until you can walk through it yourself. He simply carries you until you are able to walk alongside him again.
It’s uncomfortable to leave everything you know for a place of complete mystery. It’s hard to step into the open when you’ve stayed closed off, and in-turn protected, from the world. It’s scary to walk where it once seemed impossible. You have to know that you’re not doing this walk alone. This isn’t an awkward walk in silence. This a walk where you have conversations with your rescuer. You come to know each other. You know that you are deeply and immensely loved and cared for. You learn that your boat was hurting you. Every time a storm came, you’d get small cuts and bruises from being thrown around. You didn’t notice that those small injuries were staying with you longer than the storm. You realize that your boat was not only keeping you from feeling hurt from others, but it was also keeping you from feeling love from others. As you continue to walk, your best friend tells you every reason he loves you. You know that getting out of the boat was a rewarding decision.
Get out of the boat and let Jesus walk with you through life. Trust that he will not leave you, he will not hurt you, he will not let you drown. He offers love, peace, and assurance. Accepting his offer to leave my boat behind and walk with him is one of the best decisions I have made.
