Ships are designed to float

I have been pondering a question these last few days... If you drop a piece of metal in water it will sink. So why does a huge piece of metal, weighing more than 100 hundred tonnes, float? 

Why? Because it is designed to. 

A ship is designed to float. 

A design, so carefully created, that the vessel looks beautiful, streamlined, almost elegant as it sits in the harbour or sails on the high seas.

But out of the water it is a different story entirely. No longer beautiful, the Africa Mercy looks ill at ease. 

Large, cumbersome, incapable of doing what she was designed to do. Her motors and generators can't work. She relies on others for electricity and water; and few of her usually self-reliant systems work.

She was designed for another environment. Ships are designed to float. The dry dock might be designed for the ship, but the ship was not designed for dry dock. Ships are designed to float.

I live on a hospital ship and I spend a lot of time docked in African ports watching other ships come and go. Mostly I see cargo ships and some of these have their own cranes, others are loaded with huge containers. In Madagascar and the Canary Islands I have also seen a lot of cruise ships – huge, luxurious creations. Different ships each with different designs depending on their purpose.

Rather like people. Different people designed for different purposes. And different times need different people. It was said that Winston Churchill was a great leader in war-time, but less so in peace-time.

Yesterday the 'refloating' process began. The dry dock filled with water, and the Africa Mercy returned to her original environment, not dry dock but water. It was a process that took nearly all day. 

The bible tells me that each of us is designed by God. That he has plans and purposes for us. Do you know that? Do you live like that? Do you embrace who God made you to be? Do you embrace your destiny, at such a time as this, and live as you were designed to live? 

Photo credits: Mercy Ships or other crew members photos from Facebook.