Adrift
It was a difficult feeling to describe. I'd been unsettled for days and couldn't figure out why. Finally, the word hit me. I was feeling adrift. It wasn't as though I was lost. No, I was very engaged in my latest DIY project. For years rainstorms had been depositing increasingly bigger pools of water directly in front of our porch and eventually into our basement. We had installed a French drain when we first moved into this house over 20 years ago but it was obviously not working very well. Take a look...
I hired our nephew, Andrew, to help me excavate the old drain. We discovered that water would still flow through the pipe to the creek. But the gravel and pipe had been covered over with so much soil that the water never made it down into the drain. It was in the middle of all this work that I began to feel adrift.
I prayerfully thought about why and found my answer in the rainwater. Just as the eroded soil had blocked the water's ability to get deep enough to soak into the French drain, my spiritual focus had eroded. I had become fixated on my French drain project along with a number of other issues. You might be familiar with some of some of those issues––a global pandemic, social unrest and a contentious political climate. The attention I was paying to these issues along with my drain project had caused me to lose connection with God as my foundation, thus my sense of being adrift. I found my solution in Luke's Gospel:
That one is like a person building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who listens and does not act is like a person who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed.”
Luke 6:48-49
In my last blog I wrote about Sojourn, a temporary stay. In this case I had allowed other things to cause me to sojourn away from God. What is distracting you or causing you to feel unsettled or adrift? Who and what are you "listening" to right now? How are you "acting" in ways that might be causing you to sojourn away from God? Focus on your foundation in Christ, your rock. Go deeper with Him and experience the connection that brings peace in the midst of any storm.
Oh and check out how the "rock" in our front yard solved our water problem!
