Square Feet and Rounded Backs

We are to be a ship for passengers that carries others to their destination.  We are to let the sails billow taut in the wind, not proudly...just as they were made to do.  We are to be a home for a given amount of time between a point of origin and a destination.  Sometimes we will praised for our seaworthiness, but most times we are to be, simply, a transport to weary bodies and souls who cannot see past their knees.  Always a companion, always with a purpose.

Sometimes we are meant to move like a thief in the night, quickly, quietly, bringing to safety the precious cargo entrusted lest it fall into the wrong hands.  Sometimes we are a place for rest and celebration.  And sometimes we are sailed without a soul aboard just to see what might break before we carry another load.

Without passengers we are being mended, prepared, varnished, to be sailed in the bay, the pass, and one day in the open sea.

So, what will make us seaworthy?  Are we to become strong enough for a day's excursion?  A week's?  Or a long journey?

We begin with oars, and so our ship, in the beginning does not have many passengers, because the Captain knows it would be too much to bear. Our rudder is placed.  Backs are strengthened with the heave-ho.  The rowers become perfected in unison, each relying on each other's strengths and compensating for each other's weaknesses.  In this I'll tell you of my aching back, so that you can minister to me, and everyone can work harder until I am well.  I will lay it all bare before my brethren.

https://www.reverbnation.com/laurenkaysingersongwriter/song/17541393-lay-it-all-bare





Then our idea of a common purpose becomes the common purpose.  We are of one Movement.  The passionate strength of each pull of the oar is measured, the faces that beg for relief in their efforts, for the higher destination to be reached.  The captain watches and commands, the helmsman steers, the rowers row, and when we are measured ready to harness the mighty wind in our sails we will receive the command to lift them, and our speed will increase.  We will work together, our only concerns being not of ourselves, but rather being the safety of our brother, the safety of the ship, the ship entrusted to the equipped called. 

Mark 1: 16-18
¹⁶ As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ¹⁷ “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” ¹⁸ At once they left their nets and followed him.



He says, "Leave your nets.  Leave your ways of doing things.  Leave your own understanding, and submit to the Spirit leading your hearts to greater ways.  Now my strength will enter your backs, the backs that bow into humble curves like the curves of the ship that will cause it to slice through the waters."







We want to pull away from shore in a hurry, but the Captain will not let us go and sink.  In the meantime our purpose is our preparation. It is a small rudder that steers a ship.



Zechariah 2:1-3

2 Then I looked up, and there before me was a man with a measuring line in his hand. ² I asked, “Where are you going?”

He answered me, “To measure Jerusalem, to find out how wide and how long it is.”
³ While the angel who was speaking to me was leaving, another angel came to meet him ⁴ and said to him: “Run, tell that young man, ‘Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of people and animals in it. ⁵ And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will be its glory within.’