Causes of Drifting: Internal Breakdown

Act 27:15  And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. 

It is interesting to remember some of the causes that make vessels drift. 

Often it is a breakdown in the engine room.

So long as the engines are in perfect order the vessel holds to its appointed course. 

But let the shaft snap, as sometimes happens, and immediately the ship begins to drift. 

And as it is with ships, so is it not infrequently with lives...

They drift because of interior breakdown.

It may be a breakdown in morality, though no one knows anything about it yet. 

It may be a breakdown in the will, for the will is the shaft of life. 

It may be a breakdown in some sweet and simple piety like that of prayer in the secret place - and the ship goes drifting on the sea. 

There is a story of an officer in the Great War who went drifting and was finally cashiered. 

He came back again to his old home and entered the little bedroom of his boyhood. 

Then, turning to his mother, "Mother," he said, "the whole thing began when I stopped praying as a lad beside that bed."

~George H. Morrison~