Last summer my wife and I along with some friends visited the Vasa Museum in Stockholm Sweden. The Vasa was a remarkable and elaborate wooden gun ship constructed by order of the king of Sweden, Gustov II Adolf, in 1628. Due to a ‘boatload’ of numerous and serious blunders in the planning, design, construction, and sea worthy testing of the Vasa, on the maiden launch of the ship, amid much pomp, it sank within twenty minutes or so of its leaving port after a gust of wind struck it, resulting in the loss of the ship as well as many lives. Business schools have exploited the errors of the building of the Vasa and have coined the phrase ‘Vasa Syndrome.’
Over 300 years later, the Vasa was raised from the seafloor and found to be in a remarkably well-preserved condition and is now in the Vasa Museum.
Of the many failures in the overall construction of the Vasa, several struck me as having particularly sobering spiritual applications. When the ship was first planned, there was to be only one gun deck fitted for 48 cannons. Apparently, the king of Denmark, was planning or in process of constructing a warship with two decks of cannon. The king of Sweden gave instruction to the planning team of the Vasa to likewise build a beautiful and magnificent war ship with two decks of cannons, the second deck housing 16 more, and substantially increasing the total cannon weight while attempting to increase the firepower. The Vasa construction team had never built a ship with a second cannon deck and in doing so raised the center of gravity significantly making it easier for the Vasa to tip over/capsize. To compensate for raising the center of gravity, ships were sometimes built with a wider girth/bottom along with a significant increase in the ballast loaded in the very bottom [bilge] of the ship. The Vasa carried a significant load of rock as ballast [reported to be approximately 120 Tons] but apparently, as determined by a post-sinking inquiry, it carried an insufficient amount, so insufficient as to have been useless in keeping the ship upright when it experienced some wind. Apparently however, adding more ballast to lower the center of gravity making the ship more stable and resistant to ‘heeling’ [tipping over] would simply cause the ship to ride much lower in the water dangerously near the first cannon gun deck window openings.
The dictionary defines ballast as: ‘heavy material, such as gravel, sand, iron, or lead, placed low in a vessel to improve its stability.’ As a verb it means to ‘give stability to [a ship] by putting a heavy substance in its bilge; e.g. ‘the vessel has been ballasted to give the necessary floating stability’
In the case of the Vasa, there was apparently a direct connection between stability, center of gravity, and ballast. When it comes to our own lives, I suggest that there also is a direct connection between our own stability in life and what we have laid down as our ‘ballast’, as well as just where does our personal ‘center of gravity’ lie. Since ballast is something that is relatively heavy and not easily moved or shaken about, our lives would be better served the more ‘ballast’ we have within us. What kind of ‘ballast’ would that be? What would be its components?
Jesus stated in Matthew 7:24-27 that those who hear His words and act upon them will be like a “wise man who built his house on a rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall for it had been founded on the rock.” Jesus then describes the ‘foolish’ man as one who builds his house on the sand [rather than the rock] and when a similar storm came, the house fell and ‘great was its fall.’ A sailing gunship on the open seas is obviously not the same as a house built on a rock. But one thing is strikingly similar-both require stability to survive the storms and winds of life. On land a house must have a secure foundation such as a ‘rock’. On sea, a ship must have ballast and avoid a too-high center of gravity, to be stable in rough and windy seas. The Vasa was not even in the midst of a storm, or rough seas, when it capsized and sank. It apparently had a too high center of gravity due to the second deck of heavy cannon, lacked an appropriate design as well as compensating ballast, and thus was easy ‘prey’ for a ‘gust of wind that tipped it over’. Jesus said in the above passage that those who hear his words and ‘act on them’ i.e. put them into practice, will have stability built into their lives. To ‘act on them’ requires that we believe His words are true, and worthy of being followed. Using the ‘ballast’ example, in order to keep our ship upright and more stable in the storms of life, we must put into the lowest center part of our soul, the stones of deeply held convictions that the words of Jesus, and by extension, the Word of God as a whole, is truth that we must not ignore and instead more fully embrace and act upon if we want to withstand the storms of life and avoid the ‘capsizing’ of our faith. The scriptures warn us of the danger of pride, self-exaltation and self-promotion and admonish us to adopt a ‘close to the ground’ demeanor [i.e. humility]. “Therefore, he who thinks he stands, take heed that he does not fall” [I Corinthians 10:12]; Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, but humility goes before honor [Proverbs 18:12].
Sooner or later and at various times, the storms of life will hit us-even ‘slam’ into us. Am I, are you building on the Rock? Are we storing ‘ballast’ into our soul/mind by embracing more firmly the Word of God and developing wise convictions and confidence in the Lord? Am I, are you pursuing humility to ‘stay close to the ground’ keeping our center of gravity low? Doing so, assuredly strengthens our stability, enabling us to better weather the internal and external storms of life, avoiding the foolish tragedy of the Vasa-a capsized life.
“Do not be afraid of sudden fear, nor the onslaught of the wicked when it comes, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught” [Prov 3:25-26].
Luke 6:46 -Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say’.
CJS
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Thanks Dan for your thoughts. “Living out our faith is not automatic” is an often missed point in our daily walk. We easily become presumptuous about the ‘steadiness’ of our faith until we get slammed by the winds of life. Perhaps we spend too much time ‘coasting’ rather than becoming better equipped to face the enemy of our souls and the opposing winds of culture.
This is a keen insight and parallel with the sinking of a poorly designed and constructed ship. Truly, we build our lives daily with the priorities and activities of living. Too often, we take for granted those disciplines that make our lives stable, solid and able to withstand the storms of life. Living out our faith is not automatic. Truly, God provides each one of us with the basic tools for Christian living. Yet, each one of us must exercise and develop the self-discipline to apply those tools in building our lives upon the foundation of faith in Christ.