The Birds...
Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they? Matthew 6:26 (NASB)
Something that I am constantly exploring and working through is growing my understanding of God and how He works in our lives. It’s a topic that I read about, study, and think about fairly often.
Part of what drives this study is a curiosity of the world and me working to understand the truth of our world as well as make some kind of sense out of what is going on here in the west.
Another part that drives this is from me working to understand my own personal beliefs and trying to understand how to apply these beliefs to my world. It’s been a long and tough journey, which I’ve made harder than it prolly should be, mostly because I’m a little stubborn (albeit rarely…) at times.
Faith in God and Christ is not an easy thing. It’s simple, but it’s not easy, especially in a world such as ours where we believe that everything is explainable by science and where we think that truth is relative and not absolute.
I’ve always been one to question everything and I don’t believe just because someone tells me to believe. I am not interested in group think and I don’t follow crowds. I want to genuinely know the truth as best as I can and that is a hard thing to do when it comes to believing in the person of Jesus Christ, especially when you are prone to question everything and not believe without experiencing something real.
What follows is a simple sea story, it’s one that happened to me some years back and considering the direction that world seems to be going, I thought that it might be a good one to share with all those who are willing to hear it.
I’ve been working at sea for over 22 years, the vast majority of which has been in the Gulf of Mexico and 6 years in the US Navy.
During this time, I have experienced a lot of life’s ups and downs and have been at some very low places in life while being out at sea.
Being out on a boat, several hundred miles from land is a great place to face whatever is in your mind and to face whatever it is that you are going through, but its a tough way to think through your problems because there is no getting away or escaping from them.
You have no choice but to think through your stuff when there is nothing to escape off to, especially when you’re not the kind of person who watches movies or plays video games.
The cool thing about all of this is that you don’t even have to try to think about something… without any input from our extroverted world, your mind will find something from the past to think through. All you have to do is unplug from the Matrix and be willing to face the pains of the past and your mind will do the rest.
Something that I constantly question and think about is how God works in our lives. The Bible is pretty clear that God does work in our lives but that doesn’t always work well for me because I have to be shown in order to understand and believe. And once I have been shown something, I'll question the nature of whatever it is that I was shown. I can get deep in thought about something pretty quickly…
Much of the time, I have doubts about whether God is even there in a real and personal way. Its easy for me to believe in the concept of God but it’s not easy for me to believe that He cares about me or that He interacts in our lives and I believe that this is on purpose.
It means that we have to make a choice with each decision whether we will have faith in Him and follow Him or will we follow what the world wants or what we want.
We never really value something that is easy to obtain so it makes sense that if getting into heaven is the best thing going, then it would be the hardest thing to do. At least that ot works in my mind.
For the most part, God doesn’t seem to constantly show up and doesn’t seem to show us the way, at least that is how it has worked out for me. But there have been times when some interesting stiff happens. Let me share a little story…
I typically work at night. The watch that I usually stand is from midnight to noon. Well we were underway, heading to the drilling rig we were working for.
The transit from the dock to this particular rig was about 20 hours and we were about 14 hours into the trip when it was time for me to take over the watch as the engineer of the vessel.
All that means is that it was my shift in the engine room and my responsibility was to monitor the engines and all the stuff that made the vessel do what it was being paid to do.
For the most part, there isn’t much to do so long as everything is working right. Do a little cleaning, a little painting, a little maintenance, and a little bit of reading or thinking or whatever it is that you do… I typically read, write, or draw when I have down time.
Well this particular night as I was going down to the control room, I noticed about 20 or 30 moths hanging out around the engine room door, which was outside of the vessel.
That was kind of odd considering that we had been away from land for well over 14 hours at that point but it wasn’t unusual for something to land on the boat as we were leaving, or for something to be in the cargo that we were carrying, but I had never seen moths before, not in these numbers anyway. I was on watch when we left the dock and there were no moths that I noticed when we left, but whatever… they were there at that point.
Well onward we went at a blistering 10 knots, about 11.5 miles per hour, towards the rig and we arrived shortly after dawn.
During the time that we were traveling, I spent the time reading in the Bible in between doing work. I was reading through the book of Matthew and about how God provides for our lives. It was something that I had read several times before but never really thought much about.
As I read through the passage that I quoted in the subtitle, a thought occurred to me to go outside and look around. Was it a random thought or the “still quiet voice” of God? Not real sure but the thought was there nonetheless.
So I did and when I got outside I saw these moths flying around and being chased by some birds. I sat and watched as these four or five birds were chasing these moths and eating them. It was a pretty cool thing to watch actually.
But these weren’t sea birds, they were Barn Swallows… land birds eating these bugs that rode the boat out and this scene was playing out 200 miles offshore.
Land birds do sometimes end up on these drilling rigs and platforms far out at sea, but they usually don’t last long because there isn’t food for them out there. I guess they ride boats out or get carried out to sea because of storms or something. I don’t really know how how they get out there, I just know that they do one way or another.
My view of that scene was that God was showing me that He provides because it was something that was a significant struggle in my life at that point.
But why do it that way? Why not just send an angel with a note or appear in the sky like Jesus did to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Demascus? 1
Well from reading the Bible it would seem that the times where God is really blatant with someone usually means that something really big is going to be demanded of whomever God is revealing Himself too.
I think I got the more subtle message because I had to make a choice of how to believe what I was seeing. It was a choice of faith more than anything else.
Now… can I say that this was something from God? Yes I can. Do I believe that God just manifested these moths out of thin air? No, that would be silly to think. It does seem obvious that the moths hitched a ride at some point as we were leaving the port and all met up under a light that was over the door. Moths do that kind of thing naturally.
Could this have been a coincidence… moths just landing on a boat and then getting carried offshore where some hungry land birds just happen to be? Sure, but I don’t believe so because of the experience that I had and the way that it all played out. To understand it the way that I understand it, you would’ve had to experience it in a similar way that I did or had some other experience that was comparable.
Could I be wrong and just had some emotional experience based on a text that I want to believe is true? Sure. That’s possible too.
Can this be proven using some scientific explanation to where we could determine the truth of the event where the outcome was 100% certain?
Nope and we will never be able to; with this or anything else in this world for that matter. Science can’t do what we believe science can do and proving a metaphysical reality is one such thing that science can’t do.
In the end, I chose to believe that this was the work of God based on my life experience and this particular experience itself and nothing else. I had never experienced events like this before or since. It was unique.
It’s the same with believing in God to begin with. There is no way that we can ever know with absolute certainty whether God is real or not just like we can’t know with absolute certainty that science and humanism have all the answers.
But then again… looking at the condition of the world at the present moment I’m inclined to say that science and humanism don’t have any answers worth considering.
At some point you have to explore the evidence for God’s existence as openly, honestly, and as best as you can but you will eventually come to point where you will have to make a choice of whether to trust in Him or not, you will have to make a leap of faith one way or the other.
The evidence, for or against, only brings you to a point where you have to make a decision but it is up to you to make the decision as to which way you will choose, which path you will follow.
"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important." ~ C. S. Lewis
For me and my life, Christianity has been a battle of the wills, mine vs. God's. I haven’t always been one to submit to Him but as time has gone by, I’ve started to relent.
It’s not because I’m stronger than God, but rather because I have grown to trust in Him and I have let my guard down. I’ve allowed myself to believe.
God won’t force you to accept who He is, He gives you and I the ability to decide whether or not we will accept him or reject him.
Conclusion…
Well this it for this one, kinda short compared to some of the others Ive written. Thanks for following along. Please feel free to comment, like, share, and/or subscribe if you want. Or don’t… either way is fine with me. It’s free and you can unsubscribe whenever you want, provided that you subscribed in the first place... Hope yall have a blessed evening.
Fair winds and following seas,
Nate
Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 9:3-9
3 As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. 4 Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?”Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. [a]It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”6 So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?”Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” 7 And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. 8 Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. (NASB)
Even the profits questioned God. I think he wired us this way. I was told not to question God, somehow it was likened to not having faith... not questing means we are just blindly following a set of rules that we don't know the "why" of.
Your writing challenge me to think deeper on certain things. Thanks and keep it up!
Aw Nate! Keep searching and trusting. Years ago in the beginning of divorce, I was down on our dock one afternoon when a storm came up. I’m not usually scared but this one scared me. I distinctly heard a voice saying “I told you I’d take care of you “. Did I always remember that, no. But I know who that voice belonged to and I trust. Priscilla