BON VOYAGE

There was the shop, a masterpiece of comfort and containment, fitted for the high seas, there was the voyage planned, there the oceanic vastness and there the opportunity. One was off, off to the maritime wilds and the splendour of seascapes, the bitings winds, the crested monsters in water and the flying fish in their day, all part of the way.

Streamers would bring colour to tears, and their eventual snapping would signalise and be symbol of the parting. What would await those left, and those who had just left! History would pulse and ebb, events would muster and men would fluster, but the path of destiny was awakening, as if from a momentary sleep, and what was to be would now unfold.

There is however a better voyage, which has a greater good, and a more exciting way which has vaster magnitudes, that with God. It is not found in ill-expected oddity, like the falling of a star, any more than that other voyage of which we have been considering the details; but like it, is a purposeful expedition, with indeed a better purpose and a better result. This journey too has its objectives, its marvels and its life, and it leads where destiny unfolds and reads like a book.

When that voyage of life is in Christ, then the sadness is rather now the tears of repentance, and the streamers which must break, as they do, are those of attachment to this world and its ways, its cultural fibres and vainglorious adventures in the adventitious. Not now as the chaff which the wind blows is the VOYAGE which one undertakes, but as a discerned, directed, dynamic and at core, delightful thrust, as the Lord puts out His hand to stabilise, secure, send and accompany one in the midst of what may move from high drama and astounding confrontations with this world, its evils and its ballyhoo, to the call for enduring patience in the face of quiet continuation in tasks for the talents given, and projects for the pulsing heart to complete while it is still day, while one still can, while the Age still continues and the engines of predestination still churn towards the assured end.

It is to this voyage that in this volume, we look, that in the Lord, but by necessary contrast, there is another voyage, indeed their are many anti-spiritual anti-Christian package tours which may be 'done', their end as their beginning, in vain, mere courses like those of the waves, in this natural world, on the part of the flotsam and jetsam which is tossed by the forces as they move and have their sway, and men make up ideas to mirror their lostness, and in these, are the more lost still.

It is however that in Christ which brings the height of the quest for man, the grandeur of the immovable mountains of God, in righteousness, justice and wisdom, and the power of His moral might, spiritual splendour and intimate care. In this is the source of life entwined, as a vine with its branches, with the family who follow, and the meaning, the purpose, the intent, the character and the control are all apparent: the last not so tight that one is UNABLE to sin, but so no lax that it is not a fall which threatens the knee cap, excoriates the skin and teaches the heart more self-control, more severity of understanding, in the midst of the peace of mercy and the glory of God. So does the voyage bring depth in the deeps over which it passes, and bring joy in the sorrows it sees, passing as through them, but not of them, the sorrows of this world which are endless; yet the world ends, and these go their way.

To another destiny is the Christian assuredly going, and those who have learned not to trust this world, or one's own spirit in it, or anything other than Christ, know that blessed certitude of the end, because it has been assured multiply by the God when it is He Himself who makes ... the beginning (Ephesians 1:11, Matthew 15:13).

CHAPTER THREE

A VOYAGE INTO THE SUNSET

OF SHAME

OR THE CRESCENDO IN CHRIST

News 370

The Australian, February 5, 9, 2006

Britain Baying

The US Straying and Saying

Europe Naying

But God has Declared It

CHAPTER FOUR