There has been a news item that got my attention the last couple of weeks. You may have experienced the same reaction as I did. It was the news of a tiny submarine with passengers making a sightseeing trip to the very bottom of the sea for the "experience!" The 5 people on board wanted to have one of the extreme experiences that are so popular today. These 5 people wanted to see "in person" the remains of the ship Titanic. A ship that sank so many, many years ago because the makers and ship officers thought that not even God could sink it. Those 5 people were assured that they were participating in something that was safe--just as the people on the Titanic were assured they were safe.
I'm not sure why a trip in a small little submarine vehicle for a tip that cost so much money would be so attractive to do for so many. As I learned, it was about the size of a minivan, had no seats for comfort, no food, not even a window per person. I can not understand how traveling in such a vehicle with one tiny window for 5 people could be so much better and more important than seeing the same thing in pictures/videos viewed on a large screen that had been safely provided by unmanned robots.
I listened with some horror to the various theories of what happened, of how the diving vehicle was constructed and controlled, and of the following search. It was tragic in every way. It must have been terrifying to those on board if they even had a moment of notice that something was going wrong. It had to be horrifying to those who were responsible for launching and retrieving the craft. I can't imagine the thoughts of families left to wonder and grieve.
The news of the discovery of the wreckage and possible human remains ended all remaining hope. I listened to interviews and the various theories.
But one comment stood out to me as the most important thing that was said in the days and hours of discussion. And that was made by movie director and researcher James Cameron when he compared the tragic loss of the submersible to the very thing that may have led the Titanic to its own demise--over confidence! He noticed the parallels between the 1912 sinking and the submersible designed to visit the remains of the sunken ship in 2023. He said that he was struck by the similarity of the disasters when the Titanic captain was repeatedly warned about the ice ahead of his ship and yet, steamed up full speed into the ice field. And as a result many people died. And with this latest tragedy, again warning went unheeded at almost the exact same place. There is so much knowledge of what is needed to stay safe and yet the maker of the lost submersible craft did not heed the knowledge and thought he knew better! The same sort of thing that got the Titanic into trouble in the first place was overconfidence in yourself and overconfidence in an underprepared vehicle.
Later I learned that another man and his son almost were passengers on the doomed submersible. That son was not comfortable with how it was made and operated so they elected not to go. Yet, another father and son were passengers and they gave their lives for the “experience.” Two fathers, two sons and two different decisions resulted in one family talking about a near miss and another grieving the loss of a teenager and his dad.
By now, I am sure that you can see what I have seen that brings this whole incident as a strong lesson for me and lets me see messages from God. We make decisions everyday that decide what our eternal destiny will be. I pray that I am making decisions according to how the Holy Spirit is leading me and that it will be the decisions that lead to life and not death. We are assured of salvation (safety) by our Captain. He is the Captain of our voyage to Heaven, not like the captains of these 2 parallel stories.
We aren't satisfied with what we have been told--that is the picture of what is to come if we continue doing it our way! We want to try things for ourselves and not listen to the One who is wiser and anyone else with previous experience. God grieves when we get determined to go our own way--towards the destruction that is ahead if we continue.
We are over confident in what we feel and what we know. We forget to take into consideration the One who is Omniscient and knows what we don't know. We are overconfident in our preparedness which really is under preparedness for the end to come! We have plenty of warnings of what is ahead--we just don't heed those warnings!!!!!!!!!!! We still have time to prepare and to heed the warnings of what is coming.
Overconfidence and under preparedness and the END!!!!
