Like just about every other kid in America, I fell in love with SCUBA diving when Lloyd Bridges brought Mike Nelson to life in "Sea Hunt." Nelson was an independent expert in just about everything having to do with being underwater. He made his living investigating all types of underwater mysteries and solving the unsolvable.
I can still see him standing on the deck of his boat; wet suit clinging to his body, slinging his double tank backpack over his shoulders and into position. Grabbing his fins and mask and falling back first into the ocean.
My cousin and I got catalogs from every SCUBA company in America. We began forming the endless lists of equipment we would need to become the next expert divers ready to solve the puzzles Nelson couldn’t handle.
I never lost my love of diving and got certified while I was in high school. I have been SCUBA diving in lots of interesting places; lakes, rivers, ponds, the ocean, and even in Lake Superior. Swimming with the fish is magnificent.
As I watched all things SCUBA I learned of an underwater film maker named Rick Frehsee. He helped make movies such as Jaws, the Deep, and many James Bond scenes. But the film that made him famous was "The March of the Spiny Lobster." It was a documentary about Florida lobsters and their peculiar habits. Twice a year they form lines, miles long, single file, and migrate from the Florida coast line to South America and back. No one knows why they do this, but it is well studied.
At one point in my life I made the wish that I could one day study underwater photography under him. He was one of the best in the business. It was a dream.
A few years later I was serving in the military. I got stationed in Homestead, Florida. My work schedule allowed so I signed up to begin a course of study in Oceanography. My hope was to get a job on the Conshelf 4 project and live underwater for months at a time; after my discharge. I could only take one course at a time, so I took beginning Oceanography. I bought the book, walked into the classroom and sat down with all the other young students. When the professor walked in it was none other than Rick Frehsee. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had wished to study under him and now I was going to do just that. This is one of the greatest names in underwater sciences. I was in the presence of greatness. I sat in shock most of that first session.
Scripture
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If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
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Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. though I myself have reasons for such confidence.Paul is writing to the people of the church in Philippi. They had become very legalistic in their faith. It seems, from Paul’s comments, that maybe they had begun to worship their own righteousness, instead of God’s. The Philippians had become "confident in their faith."
Is it wrong to be confident in our faith? Many times I have had people tell me I seem very strong in my faith... but I want to tell you, I am not! I believe, as Paul did, that it is entirely wrong to be confident in your faith. Paul says, `I have a lot more than any of you will ever have.’ And then he tells us how wrong that is.
Paul was a pharisee of pharisees, without fault in obedience to the law, a Roman citizen; and yet it is for naught! He counts himself to be ... a somebody... higher on the food chain than any common man ... and yet he says it is meaningless.
Rick Frehsee made a name for himself in his devotion to his trade. He had become one of the world’s best. I had read about this man, had seen his films, and even heard him speak at a convention. His ability, compared to my own; I was a SCUBA diver, I had a 110 Pocket camera with a watertight housing for it so I could go underwater and take pictures, I had been diving in the ocean. It’s like me comparing my financial wealth with Bill Gates’. My few thousand dollars is nothing compared to his billions. My underwater capabilities were nothing compared to Rick Frehsee’s. The other students in the classroom didn’t seem to realize who they were studying under. They were noisy and busy opening notebooks and text books and fumbling for pencils and making plans for lunch together. They just weren’t treating Mr. Frehsee with the respect he deserved.
That semester I listened to his lectures. I swam beside him in our pool work. I rode beside him in the school bus that took us to South Miami beach for our training in underwater navigation. I walked beside him and talked with him as we moved along the beach. I spoke with him during classroom breaks and shared bags of chips and bottles of soda with him.
This man was a pioneer, right up there with the likes of Jacques Cousteau, and I was sharing my bottle of coke with him.
You know what I learned during that semester? Rick Frehsee is just a man. He eats and sleeps and struggles with the demands of a job that takes him away from home for many days at a time. I also learned that he has a physical handicap that makes it difficult for him to walk. One of his legs simply would not function as it was supposed to, and he struggled to walk. Yet, put him in a pair of swim fins and see what he became.
But I leaned, as great as he was, as devoted to his trade as he was, the pioneer that he was, he was no different than me. He really didn’t belong on that pedestal I built for him. My underwater abilities were nothing compared to his.
My faith is nothing compared to Jesus’ faith.
The answer to the question I posed a few minutes ago, "is it wrong to be confident in your faith?" Yes it is! Our faith is meaningless. Can our faith save our souls? No, it is not OUR faith that saves us or makes us anything special. It is Jesus who saves us. We should be confident, but not in our own faith, we should be confident in the Lord. That confidence removes our own egos and removes our human position in life and removes any reason to put ourselves on a pedestal, and replaces it with the surpassing greatness of Jesus.
Even in the presence of what I thought was greatness, a man I had come to revere, that greatness is nothing compared to the greatness of Jesus Christ.
In Matthew 13:44 Jesus taught, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field." This man felt that the treasure he had found was greater than all he already possessed, so he did what he had to do to get the money together to go and buy the field. Once he owned the field no one could dispute his rightful ownership of the treasure that was buried on his new property. This treasure, worth many times more than all his other wealth, was worth the purchase price.
The greatness of Jesus surpasses all other greatness. It is so important that Jesus teaches us that we should give up everything else that we have or ever will have, in order that we can obtain that treasure. He’s talking about salvation. Nothing that we do on this earth will matter once we take that final breath. From then on, the only thing that matters is what the Lord has done.
Paul says, as great a man as he was, he was nothing compared to Jesus. As strong as MY faith is, it is nothing compared to Jesus. We should be confident, but not in OUR faith, we should be confident in the Lord.
And, then, finally,
A father and son walking together. The father taking the boy to school, then off to the office. It is a hectic day with many meetings scheduled and many important clients to talk with. The father who is lost in thought and walking with intention toward town; doesn’t even notice the boy has stopped to look at a butterfly on a flower. Gently and quietly the boy stoops down and with his mouth almost forming the "ahhhhhh" that is tipped on his brain he gazes in amazement.
The father, walking with the big steps of an adult, reaches the boy’s school only to then realize that his son is no longer walking with him. He realizes that he had been so lost in his own thoughts that he walked off and left his son along the way. This is an example of "pressing on" toward the goal. Not letting anyone or anything distract you from your course. The Bible teaches us that we should be so focused on Jesus that we walk with big adult steps toward the goal which is the prize to which we are called Heavenward.
Conclusion
The March of the Spiny Lobster was a huge work among underwater specialists. It earned Rick Frehsee a permanent place in history. But when the world is gone, what good will that be? In a song by Don Francisco he sings that only the things that you do for the Lord will last, nothing else. The greatness of Rick Frehsee has been surpassed by the greatness of Jesus.
Are you confident in YOUR faith, or can you, like Paul, count everything as loss for the sake of Jesus Christ?
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