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Ocean of Life
by
Karyn Wishart
I want to start today by asking you a question, Is the ocean
of life, today, as dark and stormy as it seemed to William
Booth in his day? As you think about your response, I’d like
to read to you a portion of William Booth’s reflection upon
what he thought the world looked like in his day.
“On one of my recent journeys as I gazed from the coach
window, I was led into a train of thought concerning the
conditions of the multitudes around me. They were living
carelessly in the most open and shameless rebellion against
God, without a thought for their eternal welfare. As I looked
out the window, I seemed to see them all….
Millions of people all around me given up to their drink and
their pleasure, their dancing and their music, their business
and their anxieties, their politics and their troubles.
Ignorant – wilfully ignorant in many cases – and in other
instances knowing all about the truth and not caring at all.
But all of them, the whole mass of them, sweeping on and up in
their blasphemies and devilries to the throne of God. While my
mind was thus engaged, I had a vision.”
I’m wondering if this seems to be a picture that we still view
daily.
Do we see a world that is filled with utter darkness that
creates absolute heaviness?
Where people are drowning in the storm of life, due to the
oppression of society or through life choices or because of
their addiction to the darkness.
Unfortunately I believe that vision is still the vision we
face today.
People who are oppressed, broken, demoralised and exploited
surround us and these people are people of all classes.
Whilst I was on placement at the Marion Salvation Army in
Adelaide, I met these people and situations daily. People who
suffered social isolation due to their mental illness,
homelessness due to no housing opportunities being available,
loneliness due to not knowing where to turn to meet people,
fear because she’s not sure whether she’ll get beaten by her
partner when she arrives home, worry because he’s not sure
where he’s going to get food for another meal for his family,
anger because there just doesn’t seem to be anyway of making
this life get any better.
Some of these people fight the darkness and finally find the
light, but there are so many that fight the darkness and never
get to see the marvellous light.
Are these oppressed, broken, demoralised and exploited people
just out there, or are they sitting here in this room as well?
I guess the question we need to ask ourselves is ‘Who Cares’.
There are faithful people who choose to reach into the
darkness and pull people into the light. But there are so many
of us that stand in the safety of the light and plan and
discuss, how to pull the people out of the darkness. But very
few of us seem to make it our business to go and get the
people out.
The amazing fact is, is that we have all lived amongst the
darkness at some point but have luckily been able to claim the
light.
We live right in front of the darkness, we talk about it, we
hear lectures about it, we discuss it, we preach sermons about
it and yet we seem to ignore it. What holds us back?
God speaks to us about it, calls us to do something about it,
we hear his calls and yet we seem to ignore it? What holds us
back?
We pray, we sing, we ask for more spiritual infilling, we ask
for his strength and yet we seem to ignore it.
Sometimes we look into the darkness and snarl, we think we are
better than the darkness and so we stay away, or do we just
get scared of what could happen to us if we went into the
darkness or do we fear that the light may shrink if we get too
close to the darkness.
We have come to college to help pull people out, but have we
placed ourselves at our heavenly Father’s feet, to be at his
absolute disposal. Ready to step out into the darkness to
where Christ is already, to help pull more people into His
light.
Psalm 36:9 says ‘For you are the fountain of life, the light
by which we see’. May that be our prayer today that we would
drink again from the Lord’s fountain of life, so that we can
see all opportunities that He places before us, to pull more
depraved people from the dark stormy sea.
So I finish by asking, do you think the ocean of life, today,
is as dark and stormy as it seemed to William Booth in his
day?
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