The Vigiliance Illusion
why staying close to shore won’t keep you safe
Nighttime on the ocean is a darkness unlike anything on land.
On my first cruise, I discovered this at 2 a.m., wrapped in a thin blanket on the balcony. Sleep was too afraid to show its face. My mind ran evacuation drills on repeat: the ship hits something, it starts to sink, alarms going off, people are screaming in the hallways. What do I do? Should I really come back to the room for a life vest, or would that mean missing the lifeboat? Would anyone even find us in that little thing?
Titanic did for cruising what Jaws did for swimming—scared the easily scareable. Before we all saw Titanic, cruise ships were floating hotels. After we cried through Titanic, they became floating death traps disguised as “vacation.”
Fear writes its own story and then shows it to us on loop until reality seems naive by comparison.
I prayed every night into the wee small hours of the morning on that first cruise; worship music playing in my ears, as I lip-synced to the heavens. I whispered words of surrender and fear into the darkness. My faith felt like a life preserver in ocean’s deep. And that’s just what I sang, Oceans. 😆
The sea was a mysterious beast that week. The ship creaked and groaned with each wave as if to remind me that metal and human ingenuity were nothing compared to the water’s power. I pictured the hull splitting open like an eggshell. Water pouring in, pulling us down into silent but deadly darkness.
Fear said my life depended on the welds of steel plates and the skill of fallible engineers, but faith said the ocean answers to a voice stronger than gravity. “Even the wind and the sea obey him.” (Mark 4:41) Fear said Titanic. Faith said Oceans. But God? He once gave Job an answer that silenced both.
God asked Job if he commanded the morning or held back the sea like this: “Who shut up the sea with doors when it burst forth, coming out of the womb, when I made the storm clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, when I prescribed its limits and set in place its bolts and doors, when I said, ‘To here you may come and no farther, here your proud waves will be confined’? Have you ever in your life commanded the morning, or made the dawn know its place?” (Job 38:8-12)
Job didn’t have an answer for that, and neither do I. But God’s question tells me something: the waves that terrify me were spoken into existence and are spoken into restraint by Him alone.
The cruise line doesn’t hold our fate. Neither does the captain or the Coast Guard or our own vigilance. Our prayers don’t even keep the ship afloat. God does. Not because our prayers aren’t heard, but because His power isn’t conditional on our worry. He rules the waters whether we feel brave or terrified, faithful or panicked.
Jesus slept through a storm so violent it nearly sank the boat carrying Him. The disciples woke Him in complete terror, yelling, “Don’t you care if we drown?” And He got up and spoke to the wind and the waves like He was rebuking a child, and the sea calmed down. They were afraid of the storm, but after He calmed it, they were more afraid of Him.
“Even the wind and the sea obey him,” they said, like they just realized who He was. (Mark 4:41)
So, whether you lie awake listening for the groans of a ship at sea, the creaks of your own house in the night, or the pounding of fears in your chest, remember this: the One who calms storms with a word is the same One who holds your breath, your life, and your eternity in His capable hands. Fear will tell you your prayers are what keep you alive. Faith knows that whether you sleep or wake, sink or sail, you are held by the God who commands the sea. The waves may rise, but no one has ever been taken from His hand.
Yes, “the waves that terrify me were spoken into existence and are spoken into restraint by Him alone”. Friend that is good.