To Avoid Drift, Keep the Motor Running

Some 40 years ago I was with my cousins on a motor boat in the Niagara River.  We were having so much fun as we sped through the water from the dock on Strawberry Island and raced through the water in front of Niawanda Park.  All of a sudden, the motor conked out and my cousin Kevin could not fix it.  We began to drift and could not continue to get back to his boat house there.  We had a couple of oars in the boat that we had to use otherwise that drift would have left us at the mercy of the water and its tides.  Now I don’t know a whole lot about boating but I can tell you the lesson I learned. I want us to draw some spiritual understanding from this experience. If you don’t keep the motor running you will begin to drift off course. 

In II Peter 1:3-8 we read – “His divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of His divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. By this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue knowledge, and knowledge with self-control with self-control steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love.  For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

To use our analogy God is saying that he has provided us with that engine to operate the boat by giving us all we need pertaining to life and godliness, meaning the power needed to operate the boat of our spiritual lives.  We must keep our spiritual motor fine-tuned so it keeps running not drift.  We do this by adding the following to our life, and encouraging our counselees to be add the same in increasing measure.  We are called to first and foremost add certain things to our faith.

1.       Add to your faith goodness

2.       Add to goodness knowledge

3.       Add to your knowledge self-control

4.       Add to your self-control steadfastness

5.       Add to your steadfastness godliness

6.       Add to your godliness brotherly affection

7.       Add to your brotherly affection love

And notice what it says will happen if we will do those things.  Peter says that adding those things in increasing measure they will keep us from being ineffective or unfruitful in knowing Christ.  Just like you need to continually check the oil level and check the amount of gas and all the other maintenance steps required in or order to keep our motor running so we must continually examine our lives to see where we are in our faith walk.  II Corinthians 13:5 says – “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.  Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you fail to meet the test.” 

Yes, if you don’t keep the motor running you will begin to drift.  Stay as close to Christ as you can and you will stay focused on the things that really matter.

©2026 David W. Drake, President, Renewed Hope, Inc.