Yesterday marked the five month anniversary of the beginning of my journey walking on water with God and the bible.  It has been an amazing journey with good days, bad days, hard days, and frustrating days.  I thought this would be a good time to Eddy Out and muse a little.

When I was a junior in college I had the good fortune to work in southeast Alaska.  I was hired as a deckhand/geologist on a mineral collecting charter boat called the M/V Hyak.  It was a stately old wooden boat called a Liberty Launch.  The wood and steel required a lot of maintenance which was my job when we were not hunting for minerals.  I scraped a lot of paint that summer, but I also got to see some of the most beautiful and untouched wild areas I have ever seen.

I only spent a couple of months living and sleeping on the boat, but something interesting happened after the first couple weeks or so.  The land began to feel like the strange place and being on the water felt normal.  I guess this is where the expression “sea legs” came from.  I always thought this mainly referred to getting sea sick and one’s body getting used to the rolling and pitching of the boat, but after my experience in Alaska I think it has deeper meanings.

I feel somewhat similar about my walk with water in the bible.  I can honestly say that after the first couple of weeks of spending time daily reflecting about God and what He was trying to tell me through water and the bible this felt normal — and not doing so felt strange.  I had become accustomed to the “water” that was the daily wondering and wandering with God.  Don’t get me wrong I still feel frustrated and challenged sometimes — when I see the waves instead of the face of Jesus leading me on.  God is also teaching me about humility and how to maintain a proper posture toward Him and other people.

I had an experience in southeast Alaska that I remember like it was yesterday.  I had been on the boat for about a month and I was getting pretty familiar with reading nautical charts, tying knots, and the general skills of living on and running a boat.  My boss decided I was ready to pilot the boat on my own one day.  He was below deck and I was alone in the wheelhouse navigating through the islands of southeast Alaska.  I admit I had gotten a little cocky about my boat skills and I thought I was the master of my destiny.

I was motoring happily along thinking I knew where we were on the chart when I looked off the bow of the boat and saw a small island that was not where it should have been — or the boat was not where I thought it was on the chart.  Since large rocky islands rarely move I had to conclude that the boat was in fact not where I thought it was on the chart and it was in fact in a very different place full of shallow rocks and shoals.  After I slowed the boat down and pulled my heart out of my throat I carefully navigated back into a safer channel.  I was truly humbled by this experience and it taught me to allow room for being wrong.

I am pretty sure that as I reflect and write about the bible there are things I am getting wrong, but I think that is OK.  God did not call us to be perfect….He calls us to be persistent, and faithfully follow Him.

Prayer: God thank you for meeting me each day and helping me gain my “sea legs” while I learn how to walk on water.