Song: Still and Small

Artist: The City Harmonic

25 So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. 26 Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island.    Acts 27:25-26

We read this little nugget toward the end of Acts. This moment finds us sailing through a storm with Paul, a prisoner of the state, on his way to Rome to appeal his case to Caesar. He’s encouraging the ship’s crew.

“Keep up your courage!” he says. “God’s got it under control (which is to say, God’s just assured them through Paul that not a single one of them will die!). Now, time to wreck this ship.”

It makes me laugh every time I read it.

Courage! God is faithful. Shipwreck. What?!

We’ve been sitting with Psalm 42 most of the week. The same psalm that give us, ‘I thirst for God, the living God (v 2),’ also gives us ‘Why have You forgotten me? (v 9)’ and ‘Why is my heart so sad?’ (v 5, 11).

David is thirsty – genuinely thirsty – for God. Yet, he finds himself removed from the very place he’s meant to find Him. He can’t get to the house of God. He’s surrounded by enemies. He’s …shipwrecked. It sounds a bit like Paul on that boat. Take courage! God is faithful. Shipwreck.

It’s a psalm for those moments when you need to keep up the courage. When you know that God has a plan, that He will accomplish His good purposes in your life. But, at the moment, your life’s all shipwrecks.

It’s a psalm that gives voice to those moments when we’re thirsting for all of the right things – and yet still we are parched. When we feel forgotten.

Yesterday, we were challenged to examine our thirst. Are we thirsting for the right things? Or rather, the right One? We were invited to remember Him.

Today, we’re encouraged that He remembers us – even when we’re shipwrecked. Even when we’re dry.

Should you find yourself in the middle of your own shipwrecked moment today, my prayer for you is Paul’s prayer for those early Christians in Thessalonica: That you may know that God makes you worthy of His calling and that by His power He will fulfill your every resolve for good! (2 Thes 1:11)