The Titanic

The story of the Titanic is certainly a tragedy. Many lives were lost, the so-touted "unsinkable" ship sunk, and reputations were tarnished. I recently read an article that said the reason the Titanic sank so fast was that the rivets on the forward hull were inferior. Imagine that. A 900 foot long ship sinks in two hours because of faulty rivets. Care was evidently not taken to make sure those rivets were made of the right material in the right way. Sometimes the smallest pieces cause the biggest troubles. Assumption and arrogance are the real culprits to the tragedy of the Titanic. The captain and the owners assumed that nothing could harm their ship. Warnings were ignored that could have saved lives or even completely avoided the collision. Pride goes before a fall says Proverbs.

I wonder how many times we live as though we are the Titanic, unsinkable. We feel invincible. We are Christians and have everything under control. Ha! We too have inferior little rivets. It is called our flesh, the old sin nature. We hit a temptation and a rivet snaps as we spiral downward into an ocean of sin. Someone cuts us off in traffic and a rivet snaps sinking us into a fit of rage. Someone at church hurts our feelings and we plunge headlong into self-pity which might even keep us home from church.

How can we keep those rivets from popping so easily? Paul asked a similar question in Romans chapter 7 where he asks who would deliver him from the body of this death. He realized that even though he was born again, he still had an old sin nature that wanted to sin. His flesh was weak as is ours. That is why Paul said in Galatians 6:14 that he would not glory in anything except the cross of Christ. How much more then should we rely on the Holy Spirit and take no pride in ourselves?

God gifts each of us. His Spirit indwells us. We have all spiritual blessings available to us and yet we sometimes let pride well up and a rivet pops. We forget that the power to live successful Christian lives does not come from us. Philippians 2:13 teaches us that both the desire and the ability to please God comes from God. As long as life is going well we often rely less on God. We figure we can handle things for a while. Then when trouble comes, as it will for us all, we race back to God pleading for His help. God loves hearing from us and helping us but we ought not treat Him like a genie in a bottle, hoping He will rescue us from the consequences of our wanderings.

We can be strong in the Lord and the power of His might but we must always remember that the power is His. Left to our own devices we will steam straight into an iceberg of sin and worldliness that so easily pops our rivets causing us to rapidly sink. Like Peter on the water, let us keep our eyes on Jesus, knowing we are weak without Him. Our rivets are faulty too. We must heed the warnings and steer away from temptation so we do not sink into the chilly depths of sin.

Because He lives,

Robby