I grew up a mile from the St. Lawrence River; a wide and mighty tributary teeming with life and flowing determinedly through southeastern Ontario on its way from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. The St. Lawrence was the center of our city (“city” being a designation we were barely qualified to possess). In the summer, hundreds of boats darted in and out among its islands or bobbed happily in place upon its whitecaps. In the winter, tiny huts dotted its vast frozen landscape staffed by optimistic men braving frostbite for the chance to land a trophy northern pike.
The waters of the St. Lawrence occupied much of my free time as an adolescent. When I was older, seventeen and striving to keep my raging hormones galloping along in a somewhat orderly manner, I spent Friday nights parked on Blockhouse Island, just off the river, playing music through the speakers of my decade old car and chatting up girls as moonlight danced on the surface of the St. Lawrence’s waves.
A handful of years before that, however, the St. Lawrence offered me a far simpler opportunity for leisure. At twelve, my father would drop me off at a beach a few miles downriver from Blockhouse Island; there, I’d pump an inflatable raft full of air, load rod and tackle in one end and my eighty pound frame in the other, and row myself out into the river. The current would pick me up not far from shore, and I’d land on an uninhabited island a few hundred yards from the beach. There was a rickety dock on that island, the remains of someone’s dream to build a cottage on its rocky surface and make it a summer home, I suppose. I’d pull my raft up onto that dock and fish from the end of it, midsummer sun warming my skin as morning handed its baton to noon. I’d fish for a few hours, occasionally landing a pike or smallmouth bass; always returning it to the green-black waters of the St. Lawrence to fight again another day. Then I’d settle back into my raft and row with the current to Blockhouse Island, where my father would be waiting in his car with a city newspaper spread across the steering wheel.
The St. Lawrence was home to me in this manner for several summers. Its width and depth intimidated, fascinated, and comforted me. I felt intrepid and daring coasting along in it, stealing an occasional fish from its murky waters, always handing it back a bit begrudgingly... I felt alive. Navigating the St. Lawrence was all the mission a twelve year old boy could ever need.
One day, I pulled my boat up on that dock and left it there to investigate the craggy rocks and stunted trees of my host. I ended up on the other side of the island where I found another good place to fish. It was a couple of hours before I returned, ready to load up and ship (um, raft) out for the day. My craft had changed dramatically in my absence. The rubber and plastic were all in place; but the air was gone.
There was a leak.
I’d brought along a five dollar plastic foot pump and I hurriedly set to work refilling that raft with life-giving air. It swelled back to shape in a few minutes; so, relieved, I placed the tools of my trade in one end, lowered myself into the other, and set out on the St. Lawrence as I’d done so many times before.
This might be a convenient time to mention that, for all my interaction with the St. Lawrence, up until this time I had not learned the one essential skill related to mastering it completely: swimming. Three football fields or so from that island, it was a skill that was suddenly very much in demand. My boat’s leak was more serious than I’d supposed: it, and my sense of wellbeing, were both deflating rapidly.
Returning to the island was impossible; the current was strong enough that each pull on the oars in its direction would serve merely to hold me in place. Getting to shore anywhere else at this point was unlikely as well.
I needed to be rescued.
Maddeningly, the details of what happened next have been blurred by time and distraction. I know that I managed to get the attention of a passing boat. I know that I didn’t drown. I know that they saved me. The rest I’ve forgotten. But for some reason, everything leading up to and immediately following that nearly fateful leak is emblazoned upon my mind.
That raft is not the only thing I’ve returned from some sidebar task of exploration to find deflated in my life. I’ve come back to empty dreams; once buoyant plans lying flat and crinkly on creaky old docks. And I’ve pumped them full of the lukewarm air of yesterday’s initiative and set out anyway, only to find myself in the middle of my mission about to drown, not having nearly enough of the one single, simple resource that could keep me alive and get me to my destination. Discovering, suddenly and frighteningly, that the leak was more significant than I thought.
Lacking the passion to finish the journey.
Getting back to where I began and starting over is not an option; the current of circumstances I’m set in motion by is far too strong to fight against. The shoreline is maddeningly elusive, a safe place to regroup always just out of reach. My only hope lies in rescue.
Gratefully, Jesus just happens to be passing by.
If your passion – for Christ, for kingdom, for an existence brimming with intense meaning – has leaked out while you were scouting the territory around you; if you’ve stubbornly propped your purpose back up and launched back out on your mission, ignoring the telltale signs that all is not well with your soul; and if you’re drowning in a St. Lawrence River, colder, blacker, more foreboding than it seemed before, mouth and lungs about to fill with water and seaweed…
Humble yourself and flag him down.
Passion leaks. It happens. We’re not machine-sealed, triple-checked, perfect containers of it. We’re handmade, imperfectly stitched, stretched rubber vessels that spring a leak more often than we’d like to admit. We’re afloat on, even leaning hard into, our mission, yes; but always just a pinprick away from disaster.
Jesus knew that when he called us. He owns the river. He rules the waves. He’ll pluck you out and piece your raft back together.
He won’t let you drown – not here, not now, not ever, not if you believe in him. He’ll patch up your passion leak. He’ll make sure you get where you need to go; to the place where your father is waiting.
Passion leaks. Flag him down.
