Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 224 · August 12
I Believe God
“Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.”
For many days there was nothing in the sky, no sun by day and no stars at night. The ship went wherever the storm wind called Euroclydon chose to drive it.
By then the crew had lightened the ship, and the ship's gear had gone over the side too, "cast out with our own hands." Luke, who was on board, writes himself into the bleakest line of the chapter: "all hope that we should be saved was then taken away." Then Paul stands up in the middle of them. He begins by reminding them that he had warned them: "ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete." It seems a strange way to begin, yet it is why they believed the rest of what he said. He had been right the first time, and every man on deck knew it. Then he tells them what will happen, including the part nobody wanted to hear: "there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship."
Next Paul tells them where his confidence comes from: "For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve." The angel said, "Fear not, Paul," and gave him the promise he holds on to: "lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee." Then Paul adds his own line: "I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me." He is believing one particular message, given to him on a night he can name.
Every part of the promise held, exactly as it was given. The sailors tried to slip away in the small boat and had to be stopped: "Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." The soldiers wanted to kill all the prisoners so that none could swim off and escape, and the centurion kept them from it in order to save Paul. In the end, two hundred and seventy-six people reached the shore, "some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship." The ship was lost, as Paul had told them, and every life was kept, as God had promised.
In the middle of all that stands one short sentence, spoken on a wet deck to men who had stopped eating: "I believe God." The same God still keeps His word to the letter. When a storm takes away every other hope, what He has said is still enough to stand on.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 224 is The Holy Spirit Given (Luke 11:13).