in depth look at poem: This poem is a poem that God gave me the idea for during service. I wrote it down on a piece of paper and wrote it that night.


a boat in the middle of the water

a symbolic dream that I stumbled upon during my nightly rest:

Here I am in my own boat, in the middle of the calm sea...
everything looks fine..think I’ll stay here for a while.
look..oh no....the sky is turning black...
A STORM IS COMING!!!!!

I rush toward shore, but before I can make it a storm rips through the water
and crushes my boat and throws me out into the empty waters....
where all I know seem to be stuck also.
but then I see someone with a boat surviving the storm....
quickly I swim over to them and ask them the burning question.
how did you keep your boat through the storm?
a man called Jesus....he said.....
and how do I get in contact with him? I asked rapidly back...
just pray and believe. what, I thought....that’s too simple...
it won’t work.....

but then I decided that nothing else was working so I called on his name...
and then there was my boat..all shiny and new like nothing has happened to it.
He pulled me up into the boat and I immediatly jumped for the controls...
but, He calmly calls, "I want to control for you....
for I know when the storms come..I know where the mines are....
I can keep you safe"....
within my mind I knew He was right....but I was too proud to admit it.
I thought I could lean upon my own understanding...
I thought I could fight the problem with my own skills.

but then another storm came upon me....
and before I knew it I was losing control of my boat.
I knew that if I didn’t give Jesus control soon I was gonna float
on the surface of the water with a fragment of my boat in hand....
but, me in my ignorance, kept Him away and kept myself close.
and before I knew what happened,
I was floating in the water....my boat shattered into a thousand pieces.

And I cried out to God....
SAVE ME GOD!!!
SAVE ME GOD!!!
and he lifted me up once again.....
repaired my boat and gave me another chance to live....
but, this time, I gave Him control,
for I knew that He truly did care for me and wanted the best for me....
and I knew that He knew the way that I did not know......

and though sometime there is such a temptation to take back the remote
and try to control my life and how things are done...
it’s at those time in my life that I take a look back to this storm....
to this time where I lost without God in control of my boat.

-Jonathan Johnston


© Copyright 1997 Jonathan E. Johnston


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