Something I learned on our little adventure is
that your destination dictates your methods. For the most part, we weren’t heading anywhere. We went out onto the lake and for the most part we sailed wherever the wind would take us. Our sailing was much less about trying to get anywhere specific and more about keeping the sail in a good position to build as much speed as possible. There wasn’t a lot of wind that particular day, so we often found ourselves waiting for a “puff” of wind to catch the sail and get us moving. Now our destination was very important when it was time to go home. Speed and the perfect heel were less important than successfully arriving at the boat slip from which we departed and our actions reflected that… namely Mark took back the helm. ;-)Here are a few conclusions I drew from our trip that I believe relate to our every day life.
- You can do a lot of work and cover a lot of ground, but without clear goals and/or destination, you’re probably not accomplishing much. I see this in my own life as I navigate through a very busy ministry season and an increasingly complex home life… if I don’t set clear goals for myself—both at work and at home—I’m mostly ineffective.
- You can’t make the wind blow. God’s Holy Spirit is compared to a wind in the bible and just like that day on Saylorville Lake, we can’t make the wind blow, but we can raise and position the sails. We can build disciplines and routines into our lives (prayer, worship, bible reading, solitude, etc.) that position us for movement when the Holy Spirit “blows.” We can’t make it blow, but we can become ready for when it does.
I hope this is as meaningful for you as it has been for me. Who knows… maybe we’ll pass each other on the lake sometime.
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