My wife, youngest daughter and I just returned from a Caribbean cruise. It was a first for all of us, and had been at the top of my daughter’s wish list for a long time. It was a learning experience and, in many ways, enjoyable. It was time well spent with family, taking in new sights, sounds, sea sickness. It was a week in which my iPhone had no calls, no texts, no e-mails, no notifications, no news headlines, no weather updates, no service (so I used it as a clock, and occasional camera). There was shopping on board. There was shopping in the Mexican ports. We were entertained with a week of formal dining every evening in an elegant atmosphere in which you could easily forget you were, in fact, floating above thousands of fathoms of ocean. The menu was exotic (for my taste), and I held mostly to steak and chicken, while the others tried the new, the strange, the fancy. After dinner came the dessert menu. After dessert (and here’s the best part) we simply got up and left — no bill to pay. What I liked most was the private balcony off our small stateroom. There, I could sit and read while the ocean passed by. At night I could view a full moon shimmering on the Gulf of Mexico. I could look out and see nothing but water, taking in the same view Noah must have had for days on end. In fact, wasn’t all that water simply a remnant of the Genesis Flood — an ever present reminder of the consequences of human sin?
We were some 3,000 people on a floating city, and sin was harder to avoid than it was to find. In truth, there was much on the ship not to like, for it seemed geared toward those who were at least half-heathen. A walk on deck was bound to take you passed sunbathers in various stages of undress (even in November). Going from one end of the boat to the other often entailed trekking through a smoke-filled casino. There was dancing. There were R-rated comedians who edited themselves in early evening, “family friendly” routines before their late night acts where no one under 18 was allowed. Many of the on board shows (even the magic show) were populated with very immodestly dressed women (which explains why we took in so few shows). Ironically enough, if what the crew told us was true, ours was the only cruise ship in the world with its own burlesque show. We did not learn that till after we set sail, but the ship seemed to wear it as a badge of honor. One night’s itinerary included a special event for “GLBT” passengers (if you don’t know what that stands for, it is worse than you think). Alcohol, naturally, was ubiquitous. From that side of things, it left me feeling like a fish out of water. Accustomed to being surrounded by some of the godliest people on earth (i.e. fellow saints at the Sherman Drive congregation) I was out of my element on such a cruise. A fish out of water in a boat on the water.
But, then again, isn’t that how the Lord said it would be? “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19, ESV). To say the least, there were many aspects of the cruise where my family did not fit in. And, had some of the passengers known what we truly thought of their behavior, they would surely have hated us. The devil’s tentacles stretch farther than any giant octopus, on land, at sea, in English or Spanish. Satan drags a soul to the murky depths of sin. God gives us a higher calling, wherein, by Jesus’ blood, we can be “blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).
