A few years ago I was the guest speaker at a High School summer camp on a ship.  That’s right, on a ship!  We left Long Beach harbor and cruised out near Santa Catalina Island, about 20 miles off of the Southern California coast.  The captain was a marvelous man and would take scientific expeditions with him on the camps if he had extra room.  The price of their “free” ride was to share what they were doing with the campers on the ship.  On this particular excursion he brought along Ralph Collier, the worlds foremost authority on shark attacks, and his team.

They couldn’t tell us all of what they were doing because some of it involved the defense department.  Sharks.  Defense department.  Works for me!  At any rate, we spent some time each night “chumming” for sharks.  And we spent each night not attracting any!  I don’t know if this meant the experiment worked or not.  We did, however, attract a few other things!

Each day, and sometimes at night under the glare of lights, we were visited by a variety of marine creatures.  The most intriguing, for me, were the Flying Fish.  The most fun were the seals.  The Flying fish were drawn, I guess, by the flotsam and jetsam we were using to chum the sharks, and perhaps by the other creatures that were gathering as well.  They would explode out of the water and, with fins much like dragonfly wings, “fly” 20 or 30 feet and plunge back under the surface.  Apparently, what they were fleeing from, often without success, were the seals!

If you changed your vantage point and looked down from the 3rd deck of the ship you could actually see the seals chasing the fish right out of the water!  To say the seals were quick and graceful would radically understate the facts!  I was amazed!  I laugh with people that seals are lithe, fast, graceful and beautiful in the water and that they’re shaped like me!

Which brings me to my point.  The Word of God tells us that we have been “graced” by God with various gifts, talents, abilities and passions.  Each of us is unique but at the same time we are part of a family, a community.  We are also, apart from anything we can do to earn it, part of the Kingdom of Heaven.  When we operate in the context of our divinely appointed calling we can be our best and reach our highest potential, like those seals chasing after, then enjoying, those flying fish.

On land, however, the seal loses most of his magic.  Taken out of the milieu for which it was created the seal finds itself an easy victim, relatively slow, vulnerable and exposed.  When we separate ourselves from the people of God or choose to put His Word on the back burner we’re like a seal on land.  Out of our element.  Vulnerable.  Exposed.  And probably not having much fun!  At least not our best fun! 

So, get back in the water of the Kingdom, look cute, go amazingly fast, and catch some fish!!!

Pastor “Shaped like a seal” Doug, out!