Icebergs
Wednesday 9th July
Countless icebergs float in the frigid waters around Greenland. Some are tiny; others tower skyward. At times, the small ones are subject to surface winds, but the huge ice masses are carried along by deep ocean currents.
Our lives are subject to two similar forces. The winds represent everything changeable, unpredictable and distressing. But simultaneous with these adverse gusts or gales is another force more powerful than anything on the surface. It is the sure movement of God’s purposes and the deep flow of His unchanging love, It is in that unseen current that we should live and move and have our being.
Paul tells us that we ought not to be children, ”tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”
The little icebergs go whichever way the wind blows, just like the children who are ”tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.”
We need to be ”rooted and grounded in love so that we may be able to comprehend what is the breadth, and length and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
We can be compared to the gigantic icebergs which have far more below the surface than will ever rise above the waters of the Arctic Ocean. What is it that moves us? Is it a wind of doctrine, put out by those who want to deceive? Shouldn’t our ways be based upon love of Christ, so that we are rooted and grounded in love?
Now as we face the new year, we need to decide what it is that will move us. Paul was persuaded that ”neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
We should be like gigantic icebergs floating in the sea of humanity. We are stable and can be relied upon. We are not easily influenced by the fashions and opinions of the world.
We need to resolve that in 1992 we will not be carried about with every wind of doctrine, but we will be solid and stable. We will know where we are going and not let the winds of the world blow us off course.
The little icebergs cannot take heat and if they float south into warmer waters, they soon melt and become absorbed by the ocean that surrounds them. Not so with the giant ones which can withstand much heat and still remain intact.
The world around us would have us melt and become part of their sea of wickedness for ”the wicked are like the troubled sea,” says Isaiah. We, while in the sea, must never become part of it: Jesus said of us, ”They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”
So, as we begin a new year of service to our Lord, let us remember to be like the giant icebergs. We are in the sea, but we will not become part of it, we will not be blown about by every wind of doctrine. We need to be ”steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labor is not in vain, in the Lord.”