During my growing-up years in central Maryland, my grandparents owned a six-acre “farmette” close to the Maryland-Pennsylvania border, and I spent summer days swimming, fishing, camping, mowing grass, and pulling weeds.
My younger brother and I made so many laps around the pond with our dirt bikes that by midsummer we could see a brown track where the grass had given way to the dirt below.
The pond always fascinated me. It wasn’t incredibly large or fearfully deep. But the water was deceptive — sneaky. If you stood on the bank and gave it a passing glance, you would naturally assume that pond was static, lifeless.
You would be wrong.
Strong currents were actually moving through it from underground springs that filled the pond on one end and emptied it on the other. Pushing off from the wooden pier in a rowboat, my brother and I were hoping to row out into the middle of the pond to catch bigger fish from the depths than we could from the shore — but the moment we stopped pulling the oars, the undercurrents began to drag us toward the far bank.
If we ignored our oars long enough, our aluminum boat would crash against the shoreline.
I can’t help but see a powerful spiritual lesson here, all these years later.
We’re living in a secular world that at first glance seems friendly, welcoming, and morally neutral. But little do we realize there is actually a powerful spiritual current at work beneath the surface. It’s an anti-God current that isn’t neutral at all (2 Corinthians 4:4). It’s a strong undercurrent that slowly but surely flows away from genuine godliness, Christ-likeness, and biblical truth.
Corrupt currents will cause us to drift further away from Christ and His truth.
Peter’s closing words at the end of his second epistle are very relevant. He writes, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). The Bible teaches that growing as a Christian is not passive. It must be active and intentional.
It takes energy and determination.
Related: ‘Everyone Who Recognizes Me Before Men, I Will Recognize Before My Father in Heaven’
If we choose not to move forward in our Christian lives, we will not remain unchanged or unmoved. This evil world system will make sure of that (1 John 2:16). It will move us — and not in the direction God desires. Corrupt currents will cause us to drift further away from Christ and His truth.
Unless we keep our oars pulling hard in the direction of Christ, we will find ourselves carried further away into sin, secular values, even spiritual shipwreck.
Related: The Right Way to Get to Heaven (We All Need a Reminder)
We need to commit ourselves to active participation in our spiritual progress. Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, and developing deep Christian friendships — these are a few of the prescribed areas to which God wants us to devote our energies.
Spiritual growth takes work, but without it we’ll succumb to the drift.
Pastor Ryan Day is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where he has served for 19 years.
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