The interesting thing about drifting on a river is the total surrendering of direction. I once spent a lazy afternoon drifting down the Willamette River. I knew the destination was about an hour away but I had no impact on the direction I was taken. I had to relax and go with the flow. I was with a group from church and a few of the people went ahead to the park where our potluck BBQ was set up and waiting for us drifters to arrive.
I had no worries other than, How will I stop drifting when I reach my destination? Thankfully, some strong men were in the river to catch my little raft and pull me to shore.
The word unmoored is the results of a past action. A ship was moored to a dock or something solid to keep it from drifting. When it is unmoored, an action caused that to happen.
So many people today seem to be drifting. They have no moorings to link them to something solid. Many kids today grow up in fatherless homes. One of the greatest moorings that keep a kid from drifting is men who step up and be a father.
Young adults enter into the real world where suddenly the wrong crowd brings them in a direction they didn’t want to go. Where are the strong men in their lives to pull them to shore?
Being unmoored is not the same as freedom. Rebels want to shout that they are free when in reality they are simply casting off their moorings that kept them grounded.
In faith, it is easy to drift away from God. It is so easy to go with the flow of the world but we need to ask Where is the world going? Some would say it is going “to hell in a hand basket.” Jesus said that wide is the way to destruction and many find it.
I heard once that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I also know that it is easy to judge others by their actions but to judge myself by my intentions. Ouch.
Why do I suppose I deserve to have my intentions judged instead of my actions?
Because I never intended to drift. I never intended to cast off morals and teachings that kept me grounded only to find I’m unmoored and heading in a direction I did not choose. To a destination, I don’t think I deserve. That is Self-Deception at it’s most ugly moment.
No soul intends to be cast away from God. No soul will ever say that they intended to drift to that final destination of the long fall into eternity.
No one can drift down to the Niagra Falls ignorant of the danger. There are many warning signs showing almost certain death if someone continues to go with the flow. They can ignore the warnings, but their action does not change the end results of injury or death. Can they blame the river?
D.A. Carson said it best.
People do not drift toward holiness.
Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.
We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.
By faith, I am moored to Christ. I will not be moved. I will not become unmoored. But I must put my intentions into action and defend my faith.
Natalie
Zombie Ministry 
Hi there… This is very good!! It’s easy to drift, that’s for sure. What you said about judging others’ actions and one’s own intentions was interesting!! That is very much human nature! What is weird is that I used to soften the sting of interpersonal hurts by analyzing and speculating about the intentions of others, and that they probably “didn’t set out to hurt me.” It brought some perspective to acknowledge that someone’s unloving or disrespectful behavior was rooted more in their own brokenness, than in pure, evil malice toward me, or some unwitting designation of myself as ever-victimized. Funny how some people said I was being too “soft,” and “making excuses for others’ bad behavior
I do struggle with “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” That is one of those famous platitudes people think is in the bible, but it’s not. Instead, scripture says “Many looks on the outward appearance (which could include behavior) but God looks on the heart.” It also says, “Guard your heart, for from it flow the issues of life.”
God sees the evil, sin and deception *and* the capacity for compassion and mercy (which I believe is a vestige of being created in His image) which reside in the heart of (almost) every human… I agree, we must be intentional and spiritual disciplines are part of that… But we are also completely dependent on Him to reproduce His image (holiness) in our lives, and no amount of strident discipline will ever be an effective substitute for the precious and priceless intimacy with the Most High that He so patiently invites us into, in our every waking moment.
❤ ❤ ❤ love you!
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Hey, Nice observation. Funny that the word for today is adrift. Can I just post Ditto or Dejavu? Yes, you are correct that we are completely dependent on Him and the ongoing sanctification. The precious and priceless intimacy with the Most High is often the mooring that we neglect choosing instead to put distance between us and God much like a boat that is unmoored. It is my daily choices that end in
results that I never intended. This site is driving me nuts. every time I try to edit it I get kicked out. Urrg.
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