Devotions from Margaret Silf’s book, At Sea With God

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck and not going any where, like being adrift on the sea? It could be that we are stopped in our tracks by illness or injury or we’ve lost our vision and sense of direction. Or maybe we feel like we’re going around in circles or we’ve had to change our plans radically. Whatever form of feeling stuck may take, we feel helpless and wonder if God is still there. It may force us into a time of waiting for the breeze that might lift us beyond the stagnation we feel. “Prayer can be the means of taking the salty, sometimes corrosive or destructive experience of our everyday life and distilling it into something fresh and live-giving.”  God can recycle our experience, showing us what is to be fostered and life-giving and what is destructive to us and to be set aside. As this fresh water falls upon us and our circumstance, it brings new growth to our hearts and cleansing and refreshing. Why not start the habit of noticing God’s presence and action in everyday things, the people around us and the ordinary events that happen to us.  Notice the ways in which God has rewoven the brokenness of our experience to help us live a fuller life. It may help to spend time in creation without trying to solve problems, to read an inspiring book, to listen to music that nourishes us in our depths, or visit a spiritual friend. Remember we have the Bedrock that will hold us and is the source of our eternal lives!

Devotions from Margaret Silf’s book, At Sea With God

As we voyage on the sea of life, we may be hit by storm-force winds that surprise us and challenge us.  We can never really be prepared for them. They can be an unexpected turn of events that demands a radical rearrangement of our lives, or in interpersonal conflict, a family crises etc. The effects of storms can be far-reaching and sometimes we are left feeling alone and isolated, with our energy being sapped. At such times of turbulence it is good to make space to regularly be still and to reflect and pray. It is a time to ask for clear vision, energy, and focus for what is most essential in our journey. When there is a break in the storm, we can take the opportunity to get our bearings, and to reconnect with the world around us, responding to its needs and allowing it to nourish us. The storms have a way of helping us to deepen our trust in the Lord as we have to let go of our old understanding of what makes us “secure”  in order to discover a new layer of solid ground in Him. Perhaps we can gain insight and growth out of the stormy times in our lives even more so than the smooth stretches.

May we hear the silent assurances in the midst of our storms urging us to venture further, across the water in Faith.

Devotions from Margaret Silf’s book, At Sea With God

As we voyage on the sea of life the wind speed and wind direction may change without notice… something may happen out of the blue, or a word may be spoken that pitches us in a new direction.  We may ask ourselves if this sudden wind change furthers our journey with the Lord or if it hampers it. If it furthers it, we can run with it. But if it hampers it, we need to work against it.  We need to be reflective if we are to monitor these shifts and be aware of the people, events, and movements all around us, catching the positive winds and standing firm against the gust that might blow us over. We respond to the wind flux by using the rudder. Perhaps the rudder is our deepest, most authentic wisdom, which is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. It is what gives purpose and meaning to life. It is the way we implement the course changes we may need to hold true.  When we are at home with the wind and the waves, we can trust the movements of our circumstances and the process through which we are becoming the person God is dreaming into being. “To sail sensitively is to cooperate with that becoming, moment by moment, and to trust it.”

Let us be quiet before Him and listen so we can hear Him more clearly and become that true person!

Devotions from Margaret Silf’s book, At Sea with God

As we voyage on the sea of life there are deep, invisible underwater currents that can pull us in a positive or a negative direction. They can even rip our vessel apart. Currents tend to be strongest where there is some kind of constriction. In our spiritual journey we may be able to detect their presence with the benefit of hindsight, and it is good to take time to notice deep currents that may be revealed. It could be an issue that drags us off course or an overreaction.  So many of the currents that affect us are invisible and may carry us along sometimes against our own better judgment. An example may be the subtle power of advertising that seems to seduce us to generate artificial desires that undermines our core desire to live God’s dream.  If we are in a turbulent tide zone right now, we need to take an anchor and use it to hold ourselves steady and to take stock of what is going on. This anchor is primarily time for prayers and reflection, time to be still with God as the ground of our being.  An anchor might also be a friend with whom we can share our experience or a place where we can reconnect to our own roots.

Devotions from Margaret Silf’s book. At Sea With God

As we voyage with the Lord, what really matters is that we are trying to live true to the deepest alignment of our souls to God. As we do this, it becomes an attractor to encourage others to seek out their own deepest alignment.  Most of us know people like this, who, we feel, are deep down living true to themselves.  It helps us to trust and make our life choices with reference to our innermost compass too. They can be like a lighthouse for us to navigate life’s seas. They beam out a steady signal and these signals can help us to steer our boat. Let us in the core of our being, seek to live in alignment with all that is truest within us. Then what we experience as a powerful flow tide can usually be trusted to bring us closer to the destination of who God has dreamed us to be. The tides that generate feelings of unease will usually be indicative that we are running off course.  May God help us to learn to work against the negative movements that tend to pull us off course and flow instead with what is of Him.

Devotions from Margaret Silf’s book, At Sea With God

As we voyage with the Lord on the sea of life we need to pay attention to our position and direction. The lines of latitude that guide our journey may be such things as studying scripture, observing the Sabbath, accepting doctrine and creeds etc. The longitude lines add a second dimension and have more to do with our direct relationship with God that may be discovered in personal prayer, and discernment of the best course.  We might be asking what does God have for us here and now?  God is our fixed point and we can trust absolutely in Him who is both with us and beyond us. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to discern our true alignment, where God within us is tuned to God beyond us. God within us dwells in our hearts, giving us a sense of harmony when we are living true to ourselves, and warning us with a sense of unease when we are being untrue to ourselves.  The God beyond is present to us like a lighthouse, beaming out a unique signal that is meant just for us.   Let us learn to live reflectively so we can discover the compass point of our soul’s direction.

Devotions from Margaret Silf’s book, At Sea with God

When we feel life is hard and painful, we may see heaven as our destination where all is well, and earth a place to just survive!  But many of our spiritual fathers of the past remind us that heaven is here and now too, as Jesus said He came to give us life in all it’s fullness.

Jesus tells us to become like little children who embark upon life’s journey with no sense of there being a destination. “They just get on with it, living each day as it comes, dealing with each new encounter, negotiating each new relationship, rejoicing in each new discovery, learning from each new experience of pain.” They are growing and becoming and they are in process, evolving into who they truly are, the person God dreamed of when He created them. We can learn from them to sail life’s seas in ways that help us to grown into wholeness. Actually the wholeness happens as we sail. The destination will look after itself, if we lovingly attend to the moment we are living, just as a child would. Our destination then evolves through the people we meet as we journey, through the incidences of our daily lives, through each word of praise and criticism we receive, through failure and achievement, through everything that challenges us…..through everything that happens to us as we sail. Let us allow God to launch us upon every new day of that journey!

Devotions from Margaret Silf’s book, At Sea With God

In the sea of life leaving the harbor can be both joyful and painful  If we are sailing on the full tide we may feel overwhelming delight and anticipation. If we are launching because of an experience of despair or trauma we may feel apprehensive. Others may hardly notice the moment they actually set sail.  Often though we my feel the need to push against the harbor walls of all we have known thus far and let go of any ropes that are holding us moored in the harbor.  Sometimes  the ropes are security as we may fear the unknown and are reluctant to take risks.  Or the rope may be the fear of offending those we perceive to be custodians of the harbor. Or we could be just inwardly lazy and prefer a quiet life in a safe haven. Our ropes are all probably different. But once at sea we may have times when we feel helplessly adrift. The rules we have known on land, seem to diminish in importance. We now look to the ocean chart and new “ocean disciplines”.  Our land map doesn’t seem to work well any more. This is about the time my methodical way of having devotions no longer served me. I longed for quiet and solitude and the spiritual disciplines. They were like landmarks along the way. Of course our new maps have to be updated continually too, as they reflect what is going on in our inner life. Let us all think today of those people in our lives that  have been landmarks also and helped us find our way. Maybe they seem to bob up just when we need someone with an encouraging signal.

Devotions from Margaret Silf’s book, At Sea With God

When we are voyaging with the Lord there is a time to launch out into the sea. There has been lots of preparation in the background before we reach that stage of our journey. Often it is the fruit of years of slow growth and carefully processed experiences we have had.  We come to a place where we desire a deeper relationship and fulfillment of our Christian vision.  Sometimes as we look back we may think we wasted much of our time and may even be stuck with memories of what might have been.  But in God’s economy there is not waste. Even what seems negative, God can weave into something potentially life-giving when we co-operate with Him.  For example, those that have suffered serious abuse or betrayal in their lives, produce some of our finest literature and are most sensitive to others.

When we notice God nudging us and stirring us within to launch out into the Sea, it may be dramatic for some and for others more of a gentle and uneventful experience. But we do notice that the river of our  more confined life is now widening into something bigger and less predictable. We are being challenged in new ways which is both exciting and for me a little scary at times. More tomorrow!