Pause and Proclaim

In the novel, Moby Dick, sailors are rowing furiously while the whale boat is trying to catch the great whale. However, there is one person in the boat who’s not doing anything. He’s just sitting there being quiet and still. It is his job to be ready to take aim and throw the harpoon. Melville writes: “To ensure the greatest efficiency in the dark, the harpoonists of this world must start to their feet out of idleness and not out of toil.”

Harpoonists would appear unproductive in our busy world. Our tendency is to run from one task to the next. We get caught up in a relentless pace and are never ready to use our gifts and abilities when they are needed most.

Perhaps being busy gives us license to slip out early or be absent altogether. If we are not careful, busyness can disrupt our relationship with God.

“Busyness is the enemy of spirituality. It’s essentially laziness. It’s doing the easy thing instead of the hard thing. It’s filling our time with our own actions instead of paying attention to God’s actions.”  — Eugene Peterson

Busyness can be a distraction that does not enable us to prioritize our life. It can focus on the exterior whirr of activity instead of the precious time filled with what God values most. It’s fascinating that receiving the means of grace often takes a leisurely pace. A consistent devotional life is hard and requires stepping off the hamster wheel to biblically process our priorities.

Evangelism is unnatural. It’s 100% against our human nature. To prepare ourselves begins by trusting God’s promises and making ourselves available to be used by God and deliver messages about what Christ has already done. Fueled by his spirit and prompted to speak out of thankfulness for Christ, the highest priorities of a new life in Christ often take the most energy.  

I think that the best evangelists are harpoonists. They wait patiently — quiet and still in his God’s grace – ready to strike when the Lord provides a whale of an opportunity to proclaim the Word with all its power.