Starting the Journey
Bob Wickizer
2 Kings 2:1-14
As a child I was fascinated by small boats. My father had built a kayak from a wooden frame on which he stretched canvas. He then painted the canvas and fashioned a rather uncomfortable seat in the bottom of the boat. I remember every detail of that little boat including the uncomfortable wooden seat where I sat on a boat cushion because at age 9 or 10, I wasn't quite big enough to hold the paddle above the gunwales of the boat without a little extra height. With nothing but determination and a lot of bruises I must have run a fifty yard strip of white water five hundred times as a child. We patched the boat with duct tape until you couldn't see the original canvas.
I maintained that love of small boats and water as an adult. I mentioned my honeymoon with Joan in a sermon where we paddled for a week by ourselves in the Canadian side of the Boundary Waters International Park. Joan still insists that she would have divorced me if she could have found a lawyer the first two days out. This morning I want to talk about an often overlooked aspect of the journey - taking the first step.
For me the first step is not a step at all, it involves putting the paddle in the water and pushing off so that in a brief transition, your boat moves from being connected to the land to floating freely on the water. It is that moment when you have confidence that your planning, your preparation and your experience will take you successfully through the next few hours, days or even weeks.
And yes, twice I pushed off like that on voyages that lasted six weeks or more paddling hundreds of miles north to the Arctic Circle. I know the feeling of deep fear facing a journey of so many unknown dangers. I know that no matter how good a whitewater paddler you think you may be, when you are in the woods three hundred miles from the nearest railroad track with no communication to the outside world, if you are cocky and over-confident, ...
Bob Wickizer
2 Kings 2:1-14
As a child I was fascinated by small boats. My father had built a kayak from a wooden frame on which he stretched canvas. He then painted the canvas and fashioned a rather uncomfortable seat in the bottom of the boat. I remember every detail of that little boat including the uncomfortable wooden seat where I sat on a boat cushion because at age 9 or 10, I wasn't quite big enough to hold the paddle above the gunwales of the boat without a little extra height. With nothing but determination and a lot of bruises I must have run a fifty yard strip of white water five hundred times as a child. We patched the boat with duct tape until you couldn't see the original canvas.
I maintained that love of small boats and water as an adult. I mentioned my honeymoon with Joan in a sermon where we paddled for a week by ourselves in the Canadian side of the Boundary Waters International Park. Joan still insists that she would have divorced me if she could have found a lawyer the first two days out. This morning I want to talk about an often overlooked aspect of the journey - taking the first step.
For me the first step is not a step at all, it involves putting the paddle in the water and pushing off so that in a brief transition, your boat moves from being connected to the land to floating freely on the water. It is that moment when you have confidence that your planning, your preparation and your experience will take you successfully through the next few hours, days or even weeks.
And yes, twice I pushed off like that on voyages that lasted six weeks or more paddling hundreds of miles north to the Arctic Circle. I know the feeling of deep fear facing a journey of so many unknown dangers. I know that no matter how good a whitewater paddler you think you may be, when you are in the woods three hundred miles from the nearest railroad track with no communication to the outside world, if you are cocky and over-confident, ...
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