Repacking Your Life Raft

If you have a commercial fishing vehicle, you need to repack your life raft on a regular basis.  Between inspection and repacking costs, it can be costly.  It can, however, be what saves your life.  AMSEA says, “life rafts live in a tough environment.”  They list exposure to sun, cold, rain, hail, salt water, vibration, and storing gear on top of it as part of the problem.

My question to you is, since the storm hit, have you repacked your life raft?  Our life raft includes community support, dealing with pain, allowing ourselves to rest and recover, and finding hope and a plan for moving forward.  The most important part is strengthening our relationship to God and allowing Him to rebuild our lives.

Life is tough.  It is not just hurricanes, fires, and tornadoes that wear away at our rafts.  We face personal loss, illness, pain, family struggles, discouragement, anxiety, and loss of direction.  We may have been struggling with these things and then be hit by a hurricane.  When our resilience is threatened, we need to repack our life raft.

Some ideas for this are:

1. Refocus on God.  Let your major concentration be on Him and not your problems.  Isaiah 26:3 says, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

2. Find your strength in God’s love and power through faith. Ephesians 3:14-21 tells us about our powerful God who strengthens us “through his Spirit in your inner being” through faith so we may “know the love of Christ” and fills us “with all the fullness of God.”  We are assured that He “is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us”.  His love for us is not earned, but freely given.  

3. Connect with a local body of believers.  We are not meant to do it all on our own.  We need a support system, and we need to be connected to support others.  It is not just about us.  We need to care about the storms in the lives of other people too.  

4. Realize that storms are exhausting physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  Allow yourself time and opportunities to rest and recover.  Don’t just keep pushing at the same hectic pace.

5. Allow yourself to grieve rather than just burying pain and not dealing with it.  Talk to God and others.

6. Don’t get stuck.  Realize God has a plan for your future.  Figure out what you need to do to move forward.  This might mean finding someone to help coach you through a difficult time.

7. Recall how God has cared for you in the past and note ways He is caring for you now.  God uses our experiences to enable us to help others, so don’t be surprised if you find someone you can help later through how God worked in your struggles. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

Don’t allow yourself to drown because you do not take the steps needed to survive.  Take the time and action needed to repack your life raft.