Sit Down! You're Rockin' The Boat!

I John 3:24 -- We know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us."

Looking out over the deep blue of the Pacific, I watched the dancing glimmer of sunshine bounce off the waves. My grandmother would say that those ever-moving sparkles are her diamonds. To this day,  I can't look at them without hearing her voice share those words so proudly. It never fails to put a smile on my face.

The sun put a sheen on everything giving the landscape before us an other-worldly, blinding glow while we sat in the shade of a Mango tree and listened to the surf roll in. I could feel that I'd let myself burn. Heat radiated off my shoulders and back. I'd have a weird tan line since I'd spent most of the day with my face in the water and a snorkel in my mouth.

Out in the Mindanao Trench, a huge ocean liner slowly lumbered into view. Dad said it was full. When I asked him how he could tell that from so far away, he pointed out the slow speed and the red
paint line nearly completely obscured by the great Pacific. He said that if it were empty, we could see more of the red paint and the big 'ole ship would have a little more spring in her step.

Near the bow, a gush of water poured out of a round hole connected to giant pump. I thought it was so full that it might be sinking. But Dad told me how those big liners have a pump going round the clock. It doesn't have to be sinking to get a little water in now and then. They keep the pumps running just in case.

I stared in awe as the behemoth trudged on by. I wondered what she was carrying. I wondered what it would take to actually sink something that big. She seemed impervious to waves and weather. Dad said, it would take surprisingly little to sink the giant if the damage to the hull was in the right spot. But - he pointed out - she won't sink because she's sitting in the water. She'll sink because some of the water gets IN. That's why the pumps stay on.

Billy Graham once said that we Christians don't fail to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit because we are IN the world. We fail to yield fruit because the world gets INTO us.  And just like that big 'ole ocean liner, it doesn't take a very big chink in our armor to do a whole lot of damage. Often, the leak starts out so small that we don't even realize we're sinking. THAT is why our pumps need to stay on.

In I John, we're told that we KNOW we have the Holy Spirit. God has given Him to us while Jesus sits with His Father. We HAVE our pump. We need to keep Him on. Giving the 'ole liner a few swift punches of the pump switch every now and then isn't enough to keep the water out. The hum of those engines needs to be echoing through out the ship at a constant and steady pace. To do THAT - we need to stay in the Word. Putting a little "umph" in our safety system requires US to be vigilant. We have the Holy Spirit within us, we need to stay in touch. We need to keep the machine of our physical bodies finely oiled and ever-tuned-in to our inner pump. We HAVE to do everything we can to keep the world OUT.