A Twig and a Rose
August 3, 1492 – October 11, 1492
To see the dates listed in this way make it appear as the days of a brief life, but it is not. They are 70 days that changed the world.
Setting out to reach the east by sailing west, the world thought Christopher Columbus was crazy. On August 3, 1492 three ships sailed into history. Few expected that they would find anything but the end of the earth from which they would fall as though going over the edge of a great waterfall. 70 days into the trip, the ship was near mutiny. Fearing for their lives, the crew argued passionately for turning back. Columbus promised them that in three days, if they had not found land, they would turn back.
Hours from failure, someone spotted a reed and a carved piece of wood and soon thereafter a twig and roses. It was a hopeful sign. These things indicated land and civilization. The crew now knew that if they would just bear a little longer in their journey, they would succeed. Within hours, they found the new land. The rest is history that we all know.
Anyone of thousands of sailors could have discovered this new land. Reaching the new land required no skill that other sailors lacked. Greatness is usually not the result of great skills, but rather the result of great faith. Others could have made the trip, but they lacked faith to start. If other sailors ever did start, they quit before they succeeded.
Faith comes in degrees. Others may have had the faith to start such a journey, but lacked the faith to last to the end. They lacked the faith to persist till they could find a twig and a rose.
The challenge for Christians today is to start the journey before you see the end. Any old heathen can walk by sight, but a Godly man or woman can start in faith and spot the twig and the rose along the way.
As the Bible says, “We walk by faith, not by sight,” but along the way God sends us a twig and a rose to encourage us.
Lonnie Davis