suited to sail

Some time ago, in order to help another missionary with some government papers, we bumped and rattled several hours north to the coastal city of Cap Haitian. Our business took us to the docks and from a second story vantage point we could see most of the harbor. Looking beyond the calm harbor to the ocean inlet we saw in place of the usually tranquil ocean, angry black swells of ten feet tipped with white caps. A brisk north wind was causing the docked boats within the harbor to tug at their moorings as if impatient to be off on their next voyage.
Because the wheels of bureaucracy grind slowly in Haiti, there was plenty of time to review the scene before us, …. the wait for our papers stretched to nearly six hours. In the entire morning not one boat moved into or out of the inlet, in fact only a dredge and its busy little tender changed positions as we watched. This lack of activity in a usually busy harbor was not really a mystery because the boats tied to the docks were obviously too small or too broken down do brave the menacing swells just outside the inlet. And so they waited at anchor….. balky wooden sailboats used to carry cargo from city to city along the coast, rusty steel freighters, slim pleasure craft. Certainly they were safe from the threatening ocean but quite useless that day as far as any work was concerned.
Often when we pray for a visitation from God on our complacent churches and uncommitted believers, our petitions might lead a listener to believe that somehow God is not keeping up His end of the bargain. Perhaps we ought instead to check our “seaworthiness” as instruments of evangelism and missional activity. Many of our “harbors” appear to be occupied by the saved and safe who lack the desire or the spiritual understanding to evangelize.
I once saw a beautiful poster of a quiet harbor scene under which were written the words, “A ship in the harbor is safe, …but that’s not what ships were made for”
Or as Paul asks so pointedly ( in beautiful Shakespearian English), “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard; and how shall they hear without a preacher?”