On Sunday Dusty talked about faith being an inner ballast. Because I’m from Brookings, I resonate with anything that has to do with the sea. With the right amount of ballast, ships can weather incredibly rough water. Without it, they roll and can’t recover.
Last winter I spent a few weeks with my brother, who lives in Cambodia. We took a side trip to Bangkok to see a beautiful temple complex. Some of the buildings were covered in gold, and some were covered in intricate tile mosaics. When I asked my brother about the mosaics, he said they were made from broken china used as ballast in empty rice ships returning from China in the 1800s. The frugal Thais weren’t about to waste such an untapped source of building material. And so china that had become chipped and broken continued life, much to its own surprise I’m sure, first as ballast to keep a ship afloat and ultimately as beautiful building decoration at the hands of Thai artisans.
I wonder if faith isn’t a bit like that. Our faith gets used on a daily basis. Sometimes it gets a little chipped, and we wonder if maybe that’s the end of the story. But God is an enterprising artisan. He has a plan for our lives. Ballast time isn’t wasted time. It’s transit time.
From glory to glory…
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrew 11:1)
"Now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1:6,7)