"When daylight came, they did not recognize the land, but they saw a bay with a sandy beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could. "Cutting loose the anchors, they left them in the sea and at the same time untied the ropes that held the rudders. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and made for the beach. But the ship struck a sandbar and ran aground. The bow stuck fast and would not move, and the stern was broken to pieces by the pounding of the surf. The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners to prevent any of them from swimming away and escaping. But the centurion wanted to spare Paul's life and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. The rest were to get there on planks or on pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land in safety." Acts 27:39-44
As unbelievable as it seems, all 276 passengers made it safely ashore. Amazing. Miraculous actually. Not only is there a devotional message in their survival, but there is an underlying message that is so very important. We can still count our blessings, even when things don't go exactly as planned. Sure Paul had forewarned them that they would run aground somewhere. But, when they spotted that sandy beach and little bay and headed for it, they had to hope that they would just sail into safety in one piece. I am sure they did not count on there being a shipwreck on a sandbar or soldiers who wanted to kill all the prisoners or the stern of the boat coming apart. But, they did all get to land safely.
Sometimes we forget to count our blessings when things don't go perfectly, or especially when far from it. Life has so many challenges and my wife and I just recently had to breathe deep and count our blessings. We have a pleasant place to live. We have great roommates. We have a wonderful church family. Through a series of unplanned circumstances our son was able to join Dawn's mom and her sister and her husband with us for Thanksgiving dinner. Plus, we recently were able to have our daughter and her friend at church. All of these blessings are not picture perfect with a sandy beach, to say the least, but we are all safe for now. We are in regular touch with our grandsons and granddaughter and daughter-in-law and all is well with my family in North Carolina.
We measure our thankfulness by the fact that we are all safe and accounted for right now and not compared to anyone else, as picture perfect as their lives may seem. We invited many extra people to Thanksgiving too, and though they were unable to attend, we felt good about the invitations. In the last sixth months we have been able to touch and hug our entire immediate family and bless many other families, and for that we are incredibly grateful. We should measure our thankfulness by our blessings and not our disappointments. Things could be far worse. We are blessed. As stormy, somewhat shipwrecked and blown off course as our lives can get, when we can account for everyone, we should just be thankful. Now, on to the next set of blessings and challenges. Family life is like a long distance race, we are not as concerned about winning as we are about getting across the finish line together. Probably like you, we are just trying to run the good race as best we can.
Onward and hopefully upward,
Pastor Fred
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