Editors note: The following is the devotion shared by Stan Cox at the CH AGM on September 18,2010. I thought it was a powerful and insightful message that we all need to be reminded of. Stan has graciousily provided us with his manuscript. May God challenge us and guide us as we wrestle with 'what's below the waterline'. -- Neil
Haven’t we been on an adventure at Christian Horizons? From that first camping experience, and then the first home in Waterloo over 40 years ago, to the past few years of dramatic growth, to our God-blessed expansion into Global Ministry, it’s been an adventure with God, as he has been working through us in the lives of those whom we serve. It’s been one of the high points of my life to have had the great privilege of sharing the work that the Lord Jesus is doing through all of his servants at Christian Horizons.
What a team God has called together! And what gifts he’s given to Ed Sider as Ed faithfully, creatively and with God’s grace and character leads us. I continue to be deeply moved to know some of the children with special needs in Africa. God is coming near to them using us as his messengers. What an adventure! What a voyage!
Well, OK! Maybe some parts of this adventuresome voyage we would have just as soon left to somebody else. It’s possible to get a little seasick on the trip, isn’t it? I guess that, as followers of Jesus, we shouldn’t be surprised that our cultural environment is sometimes hostile.
So, OK, OK! Maybe there were times when we wanted to say, “Somebody stop the boat. Let’s throw the anchor over!” Well, this nautical theme came to me from my literary friend Joe Stowell, retired President of Moody Bible Institute, in something he said or wrote somewhere.
There are some things that are crucial in directing the navigation of Christian Horizons regardless of the cultural environment where we find ourselves. Because the issue in a faithful adventure with God is not whether our cultural environment is friendly, hostile, or indifferent.
Stowell quotes a story from Gordon MacDonald about a yachtsman attempting an around the world trip. Michael Plant set out on a solo crossing of the North Atlantic from the United States to France. Two weeks in, something went wrong. Plant was lost at sea. When he had left, his friends and family waved goodbye to one who had sailed around the Globe alone more than once. His boat was state of the art -- the design of its hull, the materials used in its construction, the on-board comforts. When he set out for Europe, everybody was convinced that he would make it, no problem.
But eleven days into the voyage, radio contact with Michael Plant was lost. It was easy for them to think, “Everything’s going to be OK once the Coyote meets calmer seas.” But when the Coyote's radio was dead for several days, the confidence of friends and family shrank into apprehension. Then came the news that no one had expected. The Coyote was found floating upside down west of the Azores Islands. But there was no sign of Plant.
In order for a sailboat to maintain a steady course and in order for it not to capsize - to harness the tremendous power of the wind that could either make its trip or destroy its trip, there must be more weight below the waterline than above it. It's called ballast. Any violation of this principle of weight distribution means disaster, as the boat could “turn turtle.” Of course, Plant knew that so he had attached an 8,000-pound weight to the keel of the Coyote. When the boat was found upside down, the keel was missing. Had it hit a rock? Had it had a brush with a submarine? To this day, nobody knows. But once the ballast was gone, the boat went glub.
I think that we all need to be reminded in a ministry like Christian Horizons, that it is not how well our sails are trimmed or what kind of technology that we bring or how nicely our boat is painted, or how well we have been able to navigate in the past. The issue for us is what's below the waterline, down there where nobody can see. It is what is below the waterline. If everything is weighty enough below the waterline, if we've got the ballast, we can thrive in any environment, and stay on course whatever the cultural currents are.
I think there are several above-the-waterline things that many of us who have been in the church world for any period of time tend to get seduced by. We tend to forget that the heart issues are the most important issues.
One thing is clear. The ballast is not about what a good organization we are. Maybe it's that we're rule keepers and we feel good about obeying all the rules or that our giftedness takes us through. The key issue is that none of those things counts if the heart of Christian Horizons is not right.
What do we need below the waterline to be a successful ministry of Christ in calm seas and rough seas, with the current and against the current, regardless of our journey? Paul says it is a matter of life and death. In Galatians he reported: “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, and the life I live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”
We have a great, exciting voyage ahead of us under the winds of the Holy Spirit, if we will continue to embrace an intimate, ongoing relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is about embracing an ongoing and intimate personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, which will lead to and be reflected by a life of obedience to his Lordship.
I just want to tell you that this is not a cakewalk. This is not a trip to the beach. If we learned nothing else from the stormy parts of our voyage, we learned that we occasionally spend time in heavy weather and deep weeds. There are powers that would like to strip us under the waterline of the ballast of that keeps us steady. Count on it!
But isn’t it interesting that when Jesus emerges among us, and we bow to his Lordship, he brings with him his mercy, his kindness and his patience. So the prayer of my heart is that as Christian Horizons continues to move through inevitable transitions that are still ahead of us, we will have ballast. It's not the environment. It's what's below the waterline.
How's our ballast?
Our ballast is to keep focused on the Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus Christ, it’s learning to die with him in his death, and learning how to rise daily to newness of life in his resurrection. It’s daily being transformed by obedience to his good and perfect will.
So, because if the Lord Jesus Christ, and the power of his written Word, we haven’t been like the people in that YouTube video, sliding back and forth across the deck amid the shambles of furniture, pianos, and debris.
By his mercy, even though we are deeply flawed people, we have sailed a steady course. And on the way that lies ahead of us, through financial challenges, through the wise transition process that Ed will lead us through, if we pay attention to our keel, the living, reliable, written and spoken Word of God, we will continue to sail a steady course into the Horizons that belong to Christ.
Rev Stan Cox
Retiring Chair of Christian Horizons Board
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