The story of Alex and his 4-day cruise from the port of Georgia to Key West Florida goes on a little further. It continues the next morning. Alex wakes up early on day 4, the last day of the cruse around 2’oclock in the morning. He’s not sure what awakened him until he realizes that it must be the fact that the ship has stopped. No constant hum of the engine; no study swaying from side to side; just stillness.
“We must have arrived” Alex immediately thinks to himself.
With excitement, Alex rushes to the window of his room and is met with an odd view. The ship is still entirely surrounded by water. It seems they are still in the middle of no where. However, as he continues to look, he can see the lights of what appears to be another ship in the far, far distance. It’s too far to make out exactly what it is without some sort of binoculars, but there is definitely something there. Alex glances at the clock; it says “2:15 AM”. Alex says to himself,
“Well, I’m up now…, I might as well check it out”.
Alex throws on some jeans and heads to the top deck. Once there, he takes a longer stare at the lights which he can now plainly see in the distance. In fact, he sees that there are quite a few lights in the distance; enough that he knows it’s definitely not another ship passing in the distance. It’s got to be land.
“That’s it! That’s Key West! I knew it. We’re there...” and then he stops and thinks to himself, “So why in the world have we stopped?”
Once again, Alex begins to search for a cruise attendant. He knew an attendant would be a little tougher to find at 2AM, but before long he locates a worker mopping along the top deck.
”I know I see land” he says to the attendant. “Is that Key West out there?”
“Actually, that is Ft. Myers.” the attendant tells him. “But, Key West is not far past that. We’ll be running parallel to Ft. Myers Beach and Marco Island for about a half-hour till we reach the port to dock at Key West”
Alex then asks with a puzzled look,
“So if we’re only a half-hour away from Key West, why in the world have we stopped? Doesn’t the ships computer know how close we are? Why are we just sitting out here in the ocean?”
“Well, Sir,” the attendant begins, “we are not scheduled to pull into Key West until 9:00 AM. So the ship is not going any further till about 8, maybe 8:30…”
“But why not?” Alex interrupts, “…if we’re already this close why don’t we just dock early?”
The attendant puts down his mop.
“Because” the attendant begins, “Nobody is going to be at the port at 2’oclock in the morning. The Key West port is deserted right now. There’s nobody to guide us in, nobody to dock us, nobody to unload the luggage, nobody to off board the passengers...”
“But” the attendant continues, “If we wait and pull in at our scheduled time, the dock will be filled with people to greet all of you passengers. There’ll be a band playing; the shops will be open and family members will be there all to welcome in this voyage. Plus, every one of you will get a free gift as you off board. So that’s why we’ve stopped. As I said, the ship isn’t going any further till about 8; 8:30, then they’ll kick the engine back on and we’ll be on our way to the dock”
And here lies the point of this second story. One of the things which may happen while you’re on the way towards your goal in life is you’ll begin to see your destination approaching in the distance. You’ll see your dream beginning to materialize. You’ll see your plan beginning to fall into place. You’ll start to realize that your goal will soon be within arms reach. Once you finally begin to see your destination with your own eyes, you will want it even more than earlier in your journey when your goal was only a vision. And because of this you may get frustrated if you can’t end the journey and just grab your dream right then.
But that is the most important time to be patient. You have to understand that once you can finally see “land”, it does not mean you are suddenly ready to dock. The thing is, sometimes you will be near land but, like the ship in our story, you’re early. And it may not be due to the work that you are doing in preparation of your destination; but instead it may be that your destination simply isn’t ready for you. Things outside of your control are not in place yet for your arrival. Quite often it is people who are not in position yet which keeps you stalled at a distance away from the place you are headed. In other words, sometimes it’s not you, it’s them; they aren’t ready.
That’s why timing is everything. And only God has control of the timing so you’ll have to trust God with the last leg of your journey the same way you trusted him in the beginning and the middle. There may come an occasion where you find yourself within a short distance of your destiny and unable to move any closer. But if you can be patient and wait, God will eventually reignite that engine which has gotten you thus far and send you blasting full speed ahead towards your destination. And there, at your destiny you will find a docking station filled with people whose sole purpose is to welcome you into your new plateau. There’ll be a band playing (figuratively for most; literally for some); the shops will be open, family members will be there. And you can even expect something extra that you didn’t even anticipate at the conception of your journey.
So, if you feel stalled in your mission, jut trust that soon God will wave you into the docking station of your destiny once it is prepared to welcome you with open arms so that you pull into your position right on time.
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