05/13/2022 – A summer job
One summer, as a teenager, I remember I had a summer job working at Clifton’s Marina. The work was hard, the hours were long, and the money was short, my duties included scrubbing the deck floors of my assigned ship, polishing the brass fixtures, sanding, painting, and staining wood finishes. But I have to say the worst part of the job, after dry-docking the ship was the inglorious task of scraping barnacles off the bottom of the ship’s hull. Barnacles are these shell type krustations that attach themselves to the bottom of boats and ships, you can see them on semi submerged rocks, you can see them on whales and sea mammals. For a boat or a ship, if left untreated, barnacles pose a danger as they are corrosive to the hull and interrupts the smooth flow of hydrodynamics. After the unpleasant task of scraping off the barnacles, then came the prepping of the hull for painting, this was the smelliest paint ever invented, “HULL PAINT”. The joy of my hard work only came after all the sanding and painting, all the polishing, all the scrubbing of floors, was completed, the ship looked and smelled brand new. It was easy to forget that dull looking and lack luster ship that came out of the water, was the same polished ship going back into the water.
Isaiah 43:18-19
18 Do not remember the former things; neither consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
That summer I forget the old condition of that ship, all there was left to do was to enjoy the reconditioned ship for the remainder of the summer season. Perhaps you’re finding it difficult moving ahead into a brand-new season in life, a new season of joy and victory. New seasons will have their own brand of troubles for sure, but God through the prophet Isaiah (latter part of verse 19) says He will make a way under any circumstances (wilderness, rivers, and deserts). God is faithful and will always provide a path and a way into a new season. God makes all things new.
Today meditate on this verse: Lamentations 3:23-24
Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”