Almost fifty years ago, my father told me a story about a ship's captain who was highly successful: in an era when ships were steered by the stars, he never got off course and certainly never ran aground. His new First Mate had heard about the remarkable prowess of the Captain even before coming to serve under him and was quite curious about the Captain's years of successful sailing. On his first day on the new ship, the Mate noticed that the first thing the Captain did upon entering the bridge for the morning was to remove a key from his pocket and unlock and open a private drawer. The Captain looked into the drawer for just a few seconds, then closed and relocked it, replacing the key in his pocket. The Captain explained that he kept the secret of his success as a seafaring man locked in that drawer . The next morning the Captain repeated exactly the same activity, as he did on the next day and the next and the next. Every day the Mate observed the Captain looking in the drawer in the early dawn. Every day the Captain locked the drawer quickly before the Mate could peek in.  Every day the ship sailed the required distance without mishap. The Mate sailed with the Captain for years and was well satisfied with his position of second-in-command. After many years, the Captain died and the First Mate was promoted to take his place. His first official act was to obtain the key and open the mysterious drawer. Imagine his surprise when he found a single slip of paper with only six words printed on it: Port is left. Starboard is right. Just this week I realized I am following in the Captain's footsteps or perhaps more nautically in his wake. I take a couple of pills daily (one of the blessings of being old enough to remember a fifty year old story) and like so many Americans I keep my pills in a weekly reminder box: you've seen them --- those little plastic seven compartment boxes with a day of the week noted on each individual lid. I almost never forget to take my pills at bedtime, so the box is pretty worthless to remind me of that; but, I have discovered that every morning I open the medicine cabinet door and look at the lid of the little box to see what day it is! I think I need a little box like this to put a list of God's blessings in: then when I need a reminder of what blessing I've forgotten, I could just look at the box in the morning and remember which way to steer my life. Of course, we all have such a "box" and we merely have to look into it each day to be reminded of God's grace and goodness to us. Our little box is a book, the Bible, and it provides us with not only a week of reminders but also thousands of years of memories and of promises made and of promises fulfilled. If only we would open the lid to this wonderful Book and read it on a daily basis, then we could be as successful as the Captain, never running aground, never getting off course, always 'on track.' This Book even gives us a regular opportunity to look at ourselves in the mirror on the door of the medicine cabinet to see that our faces are clean as we face the day. If you are one of the fortunate few who gets to take some kind of medicine daily, use the pill-taking time as a reminder to protect your spiritual condition as well as your physical: read your Bible!

William Russell © 2003 Bible Center Church Back To Main Page / Archive of Previous Articles