Take a cue from a fisherman — head for drydock

Winter is drawing to a close. Spring is around the corner. And the word, “drydock”, forms the content of many conversations among local boat captains and crews. This is the time of year when fishermen are getting ready for the coming season. That means getting their vessels out of the water and giving them a thorough inspection, often aided by the Coast Guard. Salt water is hard on boats, and pretty much everything else. Engines take a beating when you run them day in and day out for months at a time. Hulls and superstructures are stressed by constant pounding into the waves. Everything wears. Some things break.

But if the boats are going to be ready for a new season, the worn and the broken need replacing, repairing or repainting. Inspections are tedious and time-consuming. Some items are obvious even to a neophyte. Others are much more elusive and take a trained eye. But each problem in its turn must be addressed. Doing so is just plain hard work and there is room for plenty of grumbling over the inevitable cuts and bruises which ensue. Yet when drydock is taken seriously, a vessel experiences what can only be described as a transformation which makes her not only pleasing to the eye, but safe as well. No charter-boat captain worth his salt foregoes regular visits to the drydock.

Like it or not, human beings are rather like charter-boats. Look at your calendar and see if you are not running yourself pretty hard and taking a bit of a pounding in the process. Honestly, now, don’t you intuitively know that you need the equivalent of a drydock on a regular basis? Stress produces adrenalin.  Adrenalin turbocharges our hearts. Hearts are not made to work under long periods of stress or they break — just like a boat engine. Trying to live an upright life while immersed in everyday life can be as corrosive as electrolysis, and turn patience into impatience, innocence into cynicism, and joy into depression, weakening the very best of our intentions. And then there is just plain old sin, which affixes itself to us like barnacles on a hull, dragging us down no matter how hard we try to make headway.

Jesus understood this better than any of us. After all, he designed us and knows what makes us tick. Just look at his own ministry and you will see the Son of God stepping away from the busy-ness of his life on a regular basis so that he could draw close to his Father, get a new sense of direction, and rest and restore a weary body. He was doing more than simply obeying the fourth commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God”. (Exodus 20:8). He was doing regular maintenance. But there was need for more. After a particularly hard round of ministry, our Lord led his disciples out of Jewish lands into gentile dominated Caesarea Philippi. There they had an opportunity to take a much-needed extended period of time away from the cares and occupations of life and ministry.

The early Church took note and figured Jesus was modeling a lifestyle which was healthy for us. So they looked at his life and focused on the 40 days he spent in the Judean wilderness following his baptism in the Jordan River. They decided to set aside a period of 40 days for prayer and fasting — so that weary Christians might be encouraged to participate in our own version of drydock. We need time to stop running so hard; time to do an honest self-evaluation, asking the Lord to come alongside us to help us identify the subtle changes that need to be made as well as the obvious ones. Then we need to be willing to be disciplined enough to figuratively speaking, fix what is broken, polish what has become dull, and scrape away whatever is dragging us down.

The best part is that we don’t have to do all the work ourselves — the Lord will come alongside us to help us. Christians call the season Lent, and it happens every year about this time. Think about the pounding life has been dishing out to you. Think about taking a cue from the fishermen. Head for drydock.

The Rev. Mike Hesse is senior pastor of Immanuel Anglican Church in Destin.