Daily Devotion:

Title: Bailing Dories

Date: February 01, 2013

A dory is a flat-bottomed rowboat with high, flared sides amidships and a sharp prow. Dories are stable boats. You may have seen one in the 1937 film, Captains Courageous.*

The dory-bailing contest was held every spring at the harbor festival. It was a crowd pleaser. Two, twenty-foot dories were strung bow to bow between two opposite docks. Their sterns were tied to those opposite docks. 

The docks were crowded with spectators to watch three locals vie against three Coast Guardsmen. The locals were the Wilson brothers who rigged a plastic bait box with duct tape and dowels for handles, designed for easy heaving of seawater. Their partner was armed with a five-gallon bucket and a plan. Their opponents had a 30-gallon plastic barrel manned by two Coasties, and one fellow swung a five-gallon bucket.  

The dories were filled half-way with seawater, making them sloppy and tipsy. The goal was to empty the boat as quickly as possible. The rules said nothing about where to toss the water. The brothers bailed over the side, while their partner bailed into the Coast Guard boat, drenching the Coasties. After a while, one Coasty caught on and soon everybody was soaked. It was great fun and the locals won.

Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try, your boat keeps filling up – with fear, or stress, or anger, or bills, and meanwhile you are bailing all the harder, yet the water keeps rising?

Let’s Pray: Dear God, we’re trying; we’re bailing, but failing. Stop our waters rising. We need You. Amen.

Here’s a question: What do you do when your water rises?

*Captains Courageous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captains_Courageous_(1937_film)