But the Lord was my stay.
Stay: to stop from motion or falling; to prop; to fix firmly; to hold up; to support. To support from sinking; to sustain with strength; to satisfy in part for the time.
The nautical definition might be my favorite: to tack, as a vessel, so that the other side of the vessel shall be presented to the wind.
We all have something or someone that acts as our stay. Whether we know it, choose it, or have no clue… but it’s an important thing to realize. When a ship is at sea, the sailors can’t afford to leave the ship’s stays to chance.
The survival and performance of the ship depends on the integrity of the stays. Such is life, but what’s empowering is that we get to play a role in choosing our stay. If we choose money, a good strategy, a job, a certain city, then at some point these finite resources can prove incapable of doing the job. Choosing the Lord as our stay can feel challenging since it can sometimes feel like we aren’t really “doing” anything… or can’t really “see” anything. However, we’re also told to not look at the seen, but rather the unseen and the works of God are to believe. These can be hard to do in practice, but I’m finding that I’d rather tack the vessel of my life the Lord as my stay – to present me to the wind – than try and make something else of my own doing and strength.
