What to do when someone shipwrecks their life

 By J.E. Nickerson

Have you ever watched a family member make choices in their life that you knew would leave their life shipwrecked, but you could not intervene? Awhile ago a close family member I had known my entire life, came to my family and announced that they were tired of living the life that God had given them. They wanted a different life without God or their family. This decision caused my family great emotional and mental anguish. As I prayed and asked God for wisdom, I was lead to the writings of Paul of Tarsus. In the book of Timothy, Paul tells us that in order to fulfill our purpose in life, we must depend upon Christ in everything we say and do. Paul called it the leaning of the entire human personality on Christ in complete trust and confidence. 

Paul tells us that this kind of trust in God, only comes from holding on to faith in the teachings of the Bible and the confidence that they bring us. According to Google, confidence is defined in the following way, “the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust. The state of feeling certain about the truth of something.”

This means that the kind of faith required to lean our entire personality on Christ, requires a special type of confidence. It means that we must depend or be certain about and trust in the words of Christ and the teachings of the Bible. This is the kind of confidence that Paul warned us not to cast aside, because it brings great reward. Hebrews 10:35-36 says the following, “Do not, therefore, fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward. For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised.”

The reward that Paul was talking about is the ability to lean our entire human personality on Christ. When we are leaning our personality on Christ, then we are able to follow God’s will for our life. 

The words of Paul in the Bible, helped me to understand the thinking and the reasoning of my family member who wanted to leave the life and family God had given him. In 1 Timothy 1:19 Paul also describes what happens when someone rejects or throws aside their confidence in Christ. The rest of 1st Timothy 1:19 says the following, “By rejecting and thrusting from them [their conscience], some individuals have made shipwreck of their faith.” A person’s conscience is their ability to determine the right and wrong thing to do. Or as Google defines it, “an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior.” But what happens when someone thrusts aside or rejects the inner voice that determines how they should act and behave? 

Paul tells us that when a person does this and loses confidence in the Bible and the guidance or voice of the Holy Spirit in their life that leads them, they lose confidence in the words of God and his plan for their life. They are unable to fulfill the plans God has for them and become shipwrecked in their faith. This means that they cannot lean their entire personality on Christ or trust in him. 

When someone thinks of being shipwrecked, they usually think of a ship being dashed against rocks and splintering into pieces. Hollywood movies depict the crew of a shipwrecked vessel as being castaways and stranded in dangerous and desolate places. With this imagery in mind, let’s look at what happens when someone is shipwrecked in their faith. To be shipwrecked is defined as the destruction of a ship or to ruin and destroy a ship by crashing it or sinking it.  

When someone shipwrecks their faith because they cast aside their confidence, they destroy or self destruct their relationship with God and ruin their ability to trust him. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith in the follow way, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” But if a person loses or throws aside their confidence in the words of the Bible and destroys their faith, then how will they have hope in God and his words? A person who has made shipwreck of their faith, is left in pieces like a splintered ship that is dashed against the rocks. This kind of person can become spiritually stranded and a castaway from the plans God has for them and their life. A person who has experienced this kind of crisis of faith, may also lose interest in the life, things and relationships that God has placed given them. 

After looking at these scriptures and the definition of the words we have discussed, I was able to understand a little more clearly what could have lead my family member to reject the home, family and other relationships God had put into his life. 

The things we have looked at and the choices of my family member, should be a warning to all of us about how dangerous it can be to cast aside our confidence in Christ. In order to avoid being shipwrecked in our life and relationship with God, we must never lose confidence in the conscience and leading of God and the Holy Spirit in our lives.