A Pilot for the Journey of Life
A while ago we visited the “Rip” on a pleasant day, the sun was shining and the seas were calm. The “Rip” is the 3.2 kilometre-wide body of water between Point Nepean and Point Lonsdale in Victoria - said by some authorities to be the most treacherous stretch of ocean in Australia. Since 1840, the Rip has sunk 30 ships, badly damaged many others and several hundred lives have been lost in its turbulent waters.
This narrow body of water connects Bass Strait and Port Phillip Bay and is the only entrance for shipping into Melbourne. Tidal flows run at up to 15km/h through a narrow channel between reefs and over a rock shelf. On this fine day I could hear the throb of huge marine diesels as they eased ships through a passage just several hundred metres wide. I watched the 75,000 tonne container ship the “Ali Bahai” head north from Bass Strait and enter Port Philip Bay via “The Rip”… The length of this ship is 306 m – near 1/3rd of a kilometre and the width is 40 m. It’s engines develop around 84,000 h.p. A pilot had boarded this ship several kilometres out into Bass Strait.
The dangers are real, the sea is unforgiving and the ships traverse a very narrow channel so it is essential (by law) for ships to be under the control of a “pilot” as they traverse the Rip. I found it fascinating watching the pilot boat (see photo) based at nearby Queenscliffe, navigate the Rip and then head out into Bass Strait to rendezvous with a large ship requiring the pilots navigational and shipping skills and local knowledge to guide the large ship to a safe anchorage in the port. At the point of rendezvous a ladder drops from the deck of the ship high overhead to the pilot boat below. The pilot then climbs this swaying ladder and takes over responsibility from the captain for navigating the ship.
As it is essential for a ship to engage the help of a pilot for navigating the Rip and other dangerous waterways around the world it is essential for us to have a “Pilot” as we navigate the journey of life. The dangers are real, the challenges are unforgiving and we need to traverse a very narrow “channel” under the control of the “Pilot” as we live the journey of life. Rick Lewers writes how he heard an old man praying recently and it went something like this: "Dear God we have seen drought and fire across our land in recent times and now we are confronted by this Covid-19 virus. Are You trying to tell us something?" When viruses so microscopic we can't see them and can't control them can disrupt the world there is a reminder to a proud humanity that thinks it has no need of God. How small we are and how great our need.
Jesus said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. John 14:6. Jesus is saying that if we follow Him He can be the “Pilot” of our lives – guiding and helping us through the joys and challenges of life and leading us to a safe harbor. An old sailor near the end of his life wrote on the edge of his Bible, “I have cast my anchor into a safe harbour – thank God”. A question for each of us: Who is the Pilot of my life journey? Am I “doing it my way” (leads to ultimate “shipwreck”) or admitting in humility that I need the guidance and help of the “Pilot” (Jesus) in my journey of life? A question for us all to consider.
Bruce Stewart.