Row, Row, Row Your Boat!


For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 1:21

Rowing, even a small boat can be a very tiring experience. First you have to be totally coordinated. If you pull even a little harder with one arm or the other the little boat will simply go in circles. Then you can’t row a boat unless you are looking where you have been instead of where you are going. It is the way our bodies are constructed. To get a good pull on the oars you must be looking back not forward. It is very helpful when rowing a boat to have a passenger who can help you tweak the direction you are going.

But when you find the current in the river rowing gets easier and may become altogether unnecessary. If your little rowboat enters the rapids in the river rowing is not helpful at all. That’s when you hang on to the boat and see where the rapids will take you.

Life as a Christian can be like rowing a boat. Many believers row around in circles, never really getting anywhere and not even looking where they are going. They spend their days pulling hard on the oars just proud as can be to be in the boat. Then sometimes, even by accident we wander into the current of the Holy Spirit. It is a little scary at first. The boat is moving faster than we are rowing. What is happening? The Holy Spirit is obviously taking us places we never intended to go. But the most exciting part is when the current takes us into the rapids. As a believer all we can do is hang on to Jesus as our lives are tossed about from foaming current to rocks that threaten to sink our boat. Then, as there is sometimes in a river there is a beautiful placid calm just before we reach the precipice of a deep waterfall.

At this point we may be tempted to row against the current to see how long we can keep from going over the falls. But sooner or later our strength will run out and we will give in to the current and take the plunge. The giant waterfall of death waits for us all. If by faith you have learned to trust the current and even the rapids of the Holy Spirit’s leading then you can even embrace the waterfall as the next step on your journey through eternity. You still go over only by His power! Until the Holy Spirit takes you over the falls there is work for you to do here.

So there may be more than meets the eye to the 19th century nursery rhyme:

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream!