Dream no more

Outside the guest house where I stay in North Wales there is a large model yacht pond. Few but enthusiasts seem to use it for sailing model boats, but I have long itched to own a remote controlled one and sail it on this expanse of water. Being able to direct it from the shore, I would be safe in the knowledge that it couldn’t be becalmed in the middle, unable to be retrieved!

I had little idea, though, what it would be like to be at the controls of such a craft. One day recently on a visit to the Channel Islands I spotted my chance to find out. You could hire a model boat and its controls for a minimum of 15 minutes and sail it on a pleasure lake in one of the local gardens.

It came as a surprise how stressful the experience was. The man whose boat it was warned me not to sail it too close to the edge of the lake or anywhere near any overhanging branches where it could become entangled. Even with a small craft like that, backing out of trouble took several agonising seconds as the propellers cancelled their forward momentum and went into reverse. During that quarter of an hour of achieved ambition the danger of getting the boat snagged up in some obstacle was a constant worry. Staying well clear of all the pitfalls, there was little room for manoeuvre! The whole experience became a grim battle to both keep the boat safe and yet live out at least something of a spirit of adventure. Fifteen minutes seemed like an eternity.

As a result I will be much less inclined to rush out and buy a remote-controlled model boat when my next visit to North Wales approaches. There is a strong sense of “been there, done that” … and been left underwhelmed by the experience. What a disappointment! My long-nursed sense of ambition has fallen totally flat.

How should I react to this? Perhaps I should take a lesson from good old King Solomon in the Bible book of Ecclesiastes. He had a bash at everything that he thought might give him a sense of fulfilment - pleasure through acquiring wisdom; pleasure through wine, women and building projects; pleasure through a little bit of foolishness. His conclusion was the same for all of them:

So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity (Ecclesiastes 2:17-19, ESV).

Solomon could respond in a number of different ways. He could abandon himself to despair and cynicism. On a quick reading of Ecclesiastes it may seem he has done just that. Yet his way is to take a new and more constructive approach. Right at the end of the book, he sees that everything has significance because it comes under the judging eye of God. It is therefore worth living in a way that God judges to be worthy.

“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master’” (Luke 17:10).