I once had a small fishing boat powered by an old, and very unreliable, Mercury outboard.  In addition to standard fisherman’s equipment, my tackle box always contained a wrench and an aerosol bottle of starter fluid.  I had learned the hard way that drifting with the wind in the middle of a lake is a miserable way to spend a cold evening.

Besides the wasted time, drifting is a frustrating, directionless activity.  You have absolutely no control over where you are going.  One minute the wind might push you north, and the next it may change and send you southeast.  Having a destination in mind is pointless, because you are completely at the mercy of the wind.

Spiritually speaking, we are surrounded by “drifting” people.  They really have no idea where their life is going, and even if they do have some destination in mind, they have no idea of how to propel their lives toward it.  This doubt about their lives and the inability to commit to a specific course causes people to drift aimlessly from place to place, from pleasure to pleasure- hoping by chance they will find some meaning along the way.  James describes these spiritually directionless as “double-minded,” and says in James 1:6-8, “for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (NKJV)

Directionless living eventually brings despair.  After drifting from place to place on the lake of worldly living, experiencing every pleasure and accomplishment along the way, Solomon penned Ecclesiastes.  His assessment of drifting through life… meaninglessness!  Throughout the book he systematically examines every place the winds of the world will take man: wine, women, wealth, and fame- and every time he calls the experience “meaningless.”  “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities!  All is vanity.” (Eccl. 1:2, NKLV).

In the end Solomon discovered the way whereby man can point his life in a meaningful direction.  As he concluded Ecclesiastes, he said, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all” (12:13).  After being blown in every direction imaginable, Solomon knew that God’s will was the only propulsion which could point his life toward purpose and real satisfaction.  In the New Testament Paul tells us the same thing as he writes, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

We indeed live in a world filled with drifting people- lost and directionless.  Praise be to God that He offers direction to the drifting.