Yachtsmen say one of the most important features of a sailboat is its keel.
That large protrusion extending down into the water from the bottom of the hull has two functions: it prevents the boat from being blown sideways by the wind, and it holds the ballast (heavy counteracting weight) that keeps the boat right-side up. Without it, the sailboat would be essentially directionless and so unstable that it would tip over and sink.
Sadly, this also describes many people’s lives — tossed haphazardly by the waves of life, without direction or stability. They have no “keel,” and therefore nothing larger than themselves to give stability to their lives.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
A Winsome, Invisible Spiritual Bond
Not long ago, my wife and I were having breakfast at a popular local eatery, and I glanced up just in time to catch a touching incident. A young man was seated at the end of the counter being served his food. He was brawny, covered in tattoos, and mean looking — someone you would avoid meeting in a dark alley.
He wordlessly nodded to the server, looked down at his plate, and then came the improbable. He bowed his head and with great intensity, boldly gave thanks for his food with many heartfelt words.
In those moments of quiet prayer, his visage transformed into a peaceful little boy with an almost-angelic expression on his face. I went from being intimidated by him to wanting to jump up and give him a big hug!
Then he looked up, began eating and returned to his “don’t mess with me” outer demeanor. But remember, that’s only what’s above the water.
I was reminded of another surreal, other-worldly encounter at one of the then-popular Promise Keepers conferences in the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1995. There we were, all 70,000 of us, total strangers, gathered to hear speakers, pray together and rub shoulders … all day.
What struck me most was the diversity of attendees and mixing of cultures and backgrounds, with men interacting with others who had nothing in common outside that venue. Stock brokers shook hands and hugged gang-bangers, doctors hung out with reformed alcoholics and drug dealers, Crips and Bloods fraternized with former white-supremacists and Latino street gang members.
Talk about a “rainbow coalition!” It felt to me like we were being treated to a little taste of heaven.
The Book of Revelation describes a similar assembly, only this one is in heaven itself: “I saw a huge crowd, too huge to count. Everyone was there — all nations and tribes, all races and languages. And they were standing, dressed in white robes and waving palm branches, standing before the Throne and the Lamb and heartily singing: Salvation to our God on his Throne! Salvation to the Lamb!”1
And yes, there was something we all had in common, including my surly friend in the restaurant. Christians call it the mystical Body of Christ, our eternal “keel,” forever bonding its members to Christ through the Holy Spirit. This eternal assembly is the connecting principle between heaven and earth, as described by Paul the Apostle:
“By means of his one Spirit, we all said goodbye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which He has the final say in everything … Each of us is now a part of His resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain — His Spirit — where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves — labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free — are no longer useful.”2
I get tastes of this all the time in my work at the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission. Men largely abandoned by the world, suddenly and profoundly transformed from within to useful and productive lives, stabilized by that same invisible spiritual bond of love and fellowship.
No longer on their own, these guys belong to something BIG — literally, to Christ’s resurrection body.
Such a man (or woman) now joyfully reports upward to a wise and benevolent Master who always hears his pleas and receives his praise. Now that’s someone you can trust.
What’s the Catch?
So, what keeps people from jumping on God’s merry bandwagon and joining up? Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason Ministries answered with this:
“Well, I think it really comes down to one thing. It is not cultural. I’ve been in 23 different countries and it seems the same everywhere. The questions may be different, influenced by the culture, but the issue is still the same.
“The issue is man’s heart. Men don’t want to bend the knee. They want to be captain of their own ship. They want to be master of their own fate. They don’t know who they are or where they are going, but they think they can run things pretty much themselves. They don’t want God sticking His nose into their business. They don’t want God sticking His nose into their bedroom. They don’t want God in their checkbook. They don’t want God in their dating life.
“They don’t want God anywhere. In fact, the only time they want anything to do with God is when they want something from God, or they want to complain to God for something bad that has happened to them. That’s it. Other than that, get rid of God.”3
And for those insisting on going it alone, even though they do so against God’s created order, Dallas Willard warns in his book Renovation of the Heart:
“Outer darkness is for one who, everything said, wants it, whose entire orientation has slowly and firmly set itself against God and therefore against how the universe actually is. It is for those who are disastrously in error about their own life and their place before God and man.”
How About You?
We weren’t created to wander adrift like the Lone Ranger. We need God’s wind in our sails, and a spiritual “keel” to make sure we’re bound for the right port.
God is recruiting volunteers now to join Him as family members and partners in the loving fellowship of those taking part in “a tremendously creative project, under unimaginably splendid leadership, on an inconceivably vast scale, with ever increasing cycles of fruitfulness and enjoyment,”4 as Willard put it.
Further, we don’t have to wait to die to commence this heavenly life, but, upon being born again, we experience inner spiritual transformation that immediately revolutionizes our lives in the here and now. What’s to lose?
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and Internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
1. Revelation 7:9-12 The Message (MSG)
2. 1 Corinthians 12:12-18 The Message (MSG)
3. https://www.bethinking.org/apologetics/a-ten-minute-witness
4. Ortberg, John. Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.