Today's Devotional

March 29, 2005

Subject:  Open Water

Psalms 55:12 - "For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him:"

I wandered through the kitchen the other night and noticed a movie that my roommate was watching.  A husband and wife were deep-sea diving and where accidentally left behind by the boat that took them out to the dive spot.  The dive spot was quite distant from land and there was only water as far as they could see in any direction.  With no food or water, they were left to fend for themselves against the perils of the ocean.  Their first reaction was to begin to fight amongst each other about whose fault it was that they were now left stranded many, many miles away from help.  Soon however, they realized that in order to survive, they would have to help each other.  Once they saw a ship in the distance but had no chance to make it to the ship even though they tried waving their arms as vigorously as possible to get the ships attention.  Then there were the sharks.  The situation grew more grim as time passed by. 

This sounds like the story of the church and many people in it today.  We are in fact in a vast ocean.  As far as we can see in all directions there is water, represented by the world system.  Within that water there are sharks and other perilous creatures and instead of brothers and sisters coming together to survive in this sea of death, we often begin to fight each other.  We challenge, blame and often disrespect our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.  As David said in the Psalms, he didn't expect it to be his friends who offended him, but the enemy.

In the end of the movie, the husband sustained a terrible shark bite to his leg and as you know, when sharks smell blood, it's all over.  Eventually he died, and the wife, seeing that he had passed, pushed him away and watched as the sharks feasted on him.  She then decided to simply drown herself and that was the end.  

We need to realize that we've been cast into open water.  We don't have to perish by the sharks.  However, we need to be sure that the bites are only from the sharks and not from each other.  In the end, we're going to be picked up by the ship of salvation, but for now, let's support each other in this "open water."   

Carlen