A Year of Sabbaths (Week 41): Descent into the Maelstrom

("Maelstrom" by Harry Clarke printed in "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" by Edgar Allen Poe)

"The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little farther than half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in the character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast funnel became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the whirl grew, gradually, less and less violent. By degrees, the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly to uprise." (Edgar Allen Poe, Descent into the Maelstrom)

"Lord, if it is you, Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:28-31)

Sometimes life happens. Sometimes, it happens all at once. 

It was a late night on Saturday, with an early morning Sunday and two people in our family feeling under the weather, unable to sleep.  We all woke up tired, but church was great and we went to a fun place for lunch.  The restaurant was at a small, rural airport and we watched several small planes come and go while we ate on the patio.  Later in the afternoon, we played basketball, practiced baseball, and watched a movie.  We had "Family Devo" (family devotionals) and called it a day.  

But the black clouds were brewing and deep seas were coming.

And suddenly, I felt, like Poe's character in Descent of the Maelstrom, slowly being swallowed by a sea of deadlines, dinner, sick children, baseball practice, laundry, a suddenly leaking water heater, overtime, and this stormy thing we call our life.  With the help of my wife, we can usually manage the squalls. We can usually make it to port. We can usually tweak our course here or tweak it there. We make a list. We roll up our sleeves.  We manage. Until, of course, the big storms come and just can't tweak it anymore. 

That's when we begin to sink.

There's just too much to do and not enough time to do it. We are stressed out and tossed and turned and find ourselves sinking like a stone. There are many others sailing in this stormy sea as well. Some are deeper than we are.  But there are others.  We know them as well...those that aren't sucked in. Their sails are unfurled and they seem to skip over the surface of the water. 

Which is puzzling. The same sea rages around them, too. The maelstrom yawns and whirls.  What keeps them dry?

I believe that the key is getting out of the boat and surrendering life lived by our own strength.  We need help. For Poe, it came in the observation that cylindrical objects stayed closest to the surface.  He lashed himself to a barrel and jumped off the deck of the boat.  For Peter, he realized that his only hope was to cast himself overboard and into the care of his Lord.

There are going to be moments when we feel like we are being swallowed up; when we feel that we are sinking amidst the storms of life.  In those moments, we must also remember that  there is nothing that we can do to save ourselves.  We can't keep from being swallowed up by the storm any more than we can walk on water.  And for a year of Sabbaths, we have been practicing crumpling up our lists and throwing ourselves out of the boat and into the arms of Jesus. Sabbath, by definition, is not only a cessation of our work, it is also a surrender of our lives. 

In those moments when life is overwhelming, let us be comforted - not that there are so many other people in the same boat - but that there is One person who comes walking on the water with outstretched hands telling us to get out of the boat. We will not be lost. Not today. Not ever. 

Church stopping. Less doing. More being.