Storms and Snakes

There is a story about a man who took a little ride on a ship. As he and the others on board crossed the sea, a huge storm rose up and battered the vessel to pieces. Almost everyone on board, even most of the lifelong sailors, believed that the ship would break up and that everyone would drown in the cold, rough water. They were half right. The ship did run aground and break apart, but they didn't drown. The crew and passengers were able to grab a hold of floating debris from the wreckage and ride the surf to nearby shore.

As they huddled wet and cold on land, the man who is the focus of the story, began gathering wood for the fire. He placed a small stack of sticks down only to discover he had carried a stowaway with the load. A very poisonous snake slipped from the stack and bit his hand. When the other survivors saw this they immediately declared the man judged and cursed of God. This type of snake's bite was always known to be deadly, and the others believed this to be proof that this man had never been intended of God to make shore. Some of the more superstitious even felt that this showed the shipwreck to be the man's fault. God had been aiming to get him and the others were innocent bystanders in a divine drive by. But when the man did not die as everyone expected, they believed him to be protected by and blessed of God.

Years ago when I first heard this story, my thinking was along the lines of this, "If this man was so blessed of God, why did he get shipwrecked and snake bitten?" Neither of these two occurrences sound much like blessings to me. This morning I see this story differently. There are a couple of things I can take from the tale today that are of great help to me.

The first is the shipwreck itself. While the storm was certainly not the man's fault, nor is God so incompetent and powerless that he needs to tear apart an entire ship to try to kill one man and then not even get the job done, the man's presence on board was a direct result of the choices he made. He did what he believed to be the next right thing in the service to his God time and time again, until these steps led to the moment the storm rose up and the ship's hull struck the sand bar. But it was the level of destruction that saved him and everyone on board.

I am confident that if the hull had been punctured and the ship had sunk it would have been terrifying as well, but I do not believe it would have been as much so, or at least not for as long. It takes a while for water and sand to batter a boat to bits. How long did the passengers and crew feel their foundation coming apart while knowing they were about to die? The rubble from the wreckage, that only existed because of the massive level of destruction, provided the life saving flotation devices that brought them all to safety.

Sometimes it is difficult for me to look at my life and not see anything more than pieces of rubble. What I believe had the potential for a blessed and productive life became wreckage on a grand scale because of the choices I made. Even though my choices were selfish and self-centered, and destructive to my life and those that I encountered, God saved me. Pieces from the wreckage of my past became the very materials that God used to bring me to shore.

I have started a business, and in today's economy I have reason to feel afraid. In many ways I can liken my current situation to setting sail in the middle of a hurricane. Unlike the choices that led to the destruction in my life that I mentioned previously, this choice was made unselfishly, with guidance and direction from others and after much prayer and meditation. I believe this is the trip God wanted me to take. But the journey in the above story was also one God set the man on. And his ship was torn apart. Mine may be as well, and this is not a comforting thought. What is a comforting thought is that if the ship goes down, it will be because somehow that destruction can bring more productivity into my life, more growth, and make me better able to serve and help others. There will be enough pieces for me to grab hold of and survive, because I know God has a purpose for my life that has not yet been accomplished.

This thought brings me to the second lesson I needed to remember. God has a purpose for my life. He created me with gifts and talents, and He gave me dreams that would better suit me for this specific purpose. I do not have to know exactly what that purpose is, just that it is. I have done everything imaginable to thwart and destroy the possibility of purpose for my life over the years. But I failed. I should have died several times. But I am still alive. I have suffered the beating of the waves and the cold of the water, but I did not drown. I floated to the safe shores of sobriety on the broken pieces of my life and found in the rubble the willingness and materials to build a new and better life.

Several times I have encountered setbacks on my road to recovery. I am not writing here of relapses but rather the loss of things that seemed necessary for this life worth living to continue. Relationships have died in storms that seemed to come from nowhere. Jobs have been lost or impossible to attain. Vehicles have fallen into need of repair leaving me without my own way to get where I needed to go. In these and other areas I have found myself snake bit. But the snakes thus far have only been mildly poisonous. I got sick, but did not die. Still, as I gather together my fuel, there is so often fear that there won't be enough and that in the midst of what there is, death is waiting to strike.

But today I see the wonder of faith that comes from knowing that God has a purpose for my life. He has seen me through shipwreck after shipwreck, the vast majority of which were caused by own design and my refusal to let a qualified Captain sail my vessel. Somehow I find myself safe from the waves and on land. I do not need to be afraid of the snake. God did not bring my safely through the storm to a life worth living to kill me on shore before His purpose for me has been fulfilled.

Hardships will come, and there might even be disastrous wreckage. I will have times of sickness and hunger and cold, wet miserable nights after them. But I do not have to be afraid of the shipwrecks or the snakes. They can both be ways to save me, to change the direction I need to go so that God's purpose can be fulfilled and ways for others to see the handiwork of God in my life and from that deduce that they too can pulled safely from the wreckage of their own misery and rudderless lives.