Contrary Winds

The closest I’ve ever gotten physically (or emotionally) to Bimini is when we took a weeklong trip to Nassau in the Bahamas.

A few years ago both sons and their wives were living on opposite ends of the country from each other…and us. Los Angeles and New York City. We are in Nashville. Dennis and I counted up our frequent flyer miles and realized we had enough to fly us all down to the island. It didn’t take long for everybody to accept. Each couple arrived separately and converged at an all-inclusive resort. It was like a dream – all together in paradise!

A few days into our stay each couple decided to grab a kayak and paddle around in the Caribbean for a while. Dennis and I left the shore with no particular goal in mind except to drift in the optic blue water for an hour or so. However, while we were out, an unpredicted minor squall came through, picking up wind and wave and tossing us to and fro.

No worries.

We had on life jackets and were both good swimmers and could see the shore with the naked eye. But after a few minutes of struggling against the wind, we realized that we were not only failing to make headway to the shore, but we were being blown farther out to sea.

No worries.

The resort had its own private island that was maybe a quarter of a mile off shore. We would paddle or drift there, leave the kayak, and take the ferry back to the resort.

Then we realized that the direction of the wind was not only pushing us out to sea but away from the private island as well. In fact, it looked as though we would miss the island completely.

No worries.

We started signaling to our children and their wives who had managed to land safely at the resort. We waved and shouted. They waved back. It was if they were thinking, Oh, look! Isn’t that sweet ? Mom and Dad are having such a nice time.

When our waving got a bit more aggressive they finally got it. (They’re smart boys.) They alerted the rescuers from the resort who spotted us and launched a boat to retrieve us.

No worries.

We thought that our lone rescuer would hook our kayak to his small motorboat and tow us in. But no, the rescuer asked us to join him in his boat and so we did.

This is where it gets good.

We are in a small boat – three adults – and our rescuer insists that we also load the kayak into his boat as well. And so we did.

Almost instantly the boat began to sink.

No worries.

“Abandon ship, mon!” we heard from a larger boat that had been deployed to bring us all in. Part of the crew of the larger boat was laughing at our rescuer, shouting, “De captain always goes down with de ship, mon!” The other half of the crew was trying to finish the task of bringing their paying guests safely to shore. We arrived back at the resort within seconds to a standing “o” from those who had gathered to watch a middle-aged couple fight the elements. All in all it was a fun experience and it makes for a great story at parties.

Now you know I can’t tell this story without making some kind of application, so here it is:

Things change. Sudden winds blow us off course. Friends may try to help us but, let’s face it: people have finite resources.

The only One who can set us on course again is that Three-in-One…God, Son and Holy Spirit, who created the seas and everything in it, and then calmed the seas when His disciples were afraid, and can calm us when wind and wave toss us to and fro.

God told His people through Isaiah, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” Isaiah 43:2.

No worries?