Shipwrecked But Not Lost

“…so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. 1 Tim 1:18-19

The Books of Timothy were two letters that Paul wrote to his ‘son in faith’, Timothy. Timothy, a preacher whom Paul had mentored through the years, was being encouraged in these letters from his spiritual mentor. Paul was writing to Timothy to encourage him to continue on in the purposes God had laid out before him.

God has a specific and divine purpose for each of us. This letter was included in the Bible since any one of us and all of us could have been the recipient of these letters. We all have a good fight in which to engage as we live our lives. On the sea of life we will have seasons in which we sail flawlessly and other seasons in which we sail aimlessly. There will times of testing our faith and times of enjoying our faith. There will be times of successes and times of failures in our responses.

There have been times in my life when my faith was shipwrecked. I was unprepared for running aground and lacked the provisions to experience this time with full peace and contentment. The wonderful thing about belonging to Christ is while we may be shipwrecked we are never lost. Like any shipwreck on the shore, there is still a chance for rescue. While we may be spiritually shipwrecked from time to time all is not lost. We must send out our S.O.S. (Surrender of Self) and expect our Savior.

…and in the distance on the horizon we will see the silhouette of an approaching ship whose sail is God’s grace and whose wind that powers the voyage is the Holy Spirit.