Overwhelming Love

My heart is so full today, I just can’t help but feel the Father’s overwhelming affection. Thank you Jesus for loving me, thank you for always being near. Thank you for pursuing me even when I felt far from you.

I want to share a really cool analogy with you today about how ships use to navigate the ocean. When a captain would set a course the person in charge of that directive is called The Office of the Watch (OOW). This person is responsible for maintaining an understanding of where the ship is relative to the map, and constantly checking the ship’s bearing to make sure they are headed the right direction.

Naturally, the environment that the ships are in (aka THE OCEAN) is constantly taking the ships off course. Believe it or not ships do not travel in a straight line, rather the OOW regularly assesses his ship’s current position and adjusts the heading. This is such a great analogy for being a Christ follower!

As believers, God has set directives for our lives: How we should live, what our purpose is in the Kingdom, and what it means to be a Christ follower. Hopefully, as we progress through life we become more like Christ. Like the OOW, we need to consistenly check our bearings to know our current position to ensure we are headed the right direction. We need to orient ourselves to the nature of God.

I think often times I forget that I am NOT the captain or King of my life, that the only one who should be sitting as King of the throne of my heart is Jesus. I am constantly having to dethrone myself and reorient my heading because the waves of life are consistently trying to take me off course. Honestly, it isn’t really the reorienting myself toward Jesus that is the hard part – it was the discovery that we are each responsible like the Officer of the Watch to know where we are at. This requires a certain level of self evaluation and honesty that I think many like myself have issues coming to terms with. Speaking from experience here, I unknowingly walked around with wounding for 10+ years, but Christ set me free through rigorous self evaluation.

I mean, who in their right mind wants to openly admit their faults? Who would want to admit that they are not following Jesus as closely as they should or even worse that it may not even be their heart’s desire? Let’s get very real here for a sec, the reason I say you have to orient yourself to the nature of God is because our natural orientation is toward sin and the flesh. It’s not going to be easy or natural because of our fallen state to constantly adjust your heading toward Jesus – but this is what we are called to.

I hope this analogy is an encouragement for you – that you now know even if you are off-course your only responsibility is to check your current position and adjust the heading. That trusting God with the final destination and the results is your calling as you walk (or sail) in obedience to Him.

More to come on abiding in Jesus. Thanks for reading!