Cut off your lifeboats
Paul and his fellow sailors were battling a severe storm for several days and they all lost hope of being saved except for Paul. Few men tried to use the lifeboats and escape.
Then Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, ‘unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.’ So the soldiers cut the ropes that held the lifeboat and let it drift away.” Acts 27
What if God said to you in this situation “Just cut the ropes and let the lifeboats go”!
This is the most important truth I ever learnt in my life. It is called “ABSOLUTE SURRENDER”. Ask yourself this question “What are you trusting in? Who are you trusting on?” God wants you to absolutely surrender everything to him. I am not talking about a simple prayer ‘Lord I surrender my problems to you. Amen’ and walk away and live that same old, fearful and desperate life. I am talking about a lifestyle change. I am talking about a perspective change. It’s a state of mind where you come to a conclusion that Jesus is enough and it doesn’t matter whether your problem gets resolved or not!
It’s like those three Hebrew young men in the scripture who boldly said ‘Our God is able to rescue us from this furnace but even if he does NOT we will not bow to you.’ Absolute surrender is all about that ‘even if he does not’ part. You need to come to that absolute trust that God is able to sustain you with or without your problem solved. I know it’s easier said than done. You might say to me “you are out of your mind. How can I pray ‘even if God does not heal me’ when I am desperate to get healed? How can I pray ‘even if God does not give me a child’ when I am desperate to have a child? How can I live without this problem resolved?”
But absolute surrender is all about knowing who Jesus is and what he can do for you when you cut off your lifeboat and absolutely surrender to him.
For nearly eight years of our marriage, Jessline and I went through several painful situations. We went through situations we never dreamt off. We faced big mountains. We tried so hard to conquer those mountains. But after six years of violent battering, severe damage to our “ship” we realised that we were facing another huge mountain which we could never conquer. We didn’t lose hope and we kept pounding on heaven’s door. We faced unexplainable losses and excruciating pain. If I look back I can only be overwhelmed at life’s partiality towards us and the excruciating path we traveled. Eight years went by and no sign of hope and I almost gave up all hope of being saved in this “terrible storm” just like the people in that ship which Paul travelled.
Then one day I heard God saying to me ‘Cut off your lifeboats’. I didn’t understand the meaning of these words first. But he explained and revealed to me what he meant by it. He said “ABSOLUTE SURRENDER”.
That was the most important day of my entire life as I came to a conclusion that Jesus is enough for me. I prayed that most daring prayer ‘Even if he does not.’ I said to God “I know you are able to solve this problem for me but even if you don’t solve this problem in my life I will not give up on you.’ It was not just a prayer but I started living that lifestyle. My focus changed from my problems to Jesus. I was not planning my next step to get out of my problem but I was planning my next step to please Jesus. I did take steps to get out of the problem but it was not a burden anymore and it was not a priority or the key focus of my life. Days went by and I started to live a life of absolute surrender even though my problem was not resolved. The enemy tried to pull the string to make my situation worse but I didn’t react and it didn’t affect me. The enemy didn’t know that I have given the control to God.
I started enjoying life after a long time. But I didn’t fully understand what I really prayed for. By absolutely surrendering everything to God I actually allowed the creator of the universe to deal with my problems and yes he did deal with it! It became a totally different ball game afterwards. Since God was fully involved the failures of the past didn’t bother me. Things started to fall in its place. Everything that went wrong previously started working properly. We received supernatural appointments and favour from people we had never known. One day God handed me the solution to my problem that I had been trying to achieve for eight years on my own. And my life was never the same afterwards!
That’s what God wants you to do. He wants you to cut off your lifeboats and completely trust Him. Look at how this story ends after they cut-off their life boat. The scripture says “In this way everyone reached land safely.” Not one of them died just as God promised to Paul! Then why is there so much panic and fear in the journey when you know that you would reach the land safely? Yes the journey is going to be rough but that doesn’t mean you will “die”. Paul enjoyed the journey but others didn’t. Enjoy the journey today and surrender your problems to God. Cut off your lifeboats and fully surrender your problems to God.
A challenging read which forced me to look at an ‘old story’ a whole new way! Thank you 🙂
Loved this post Davidson, thank you