Word of the Day: MOTILITY—The Ability to Move.
In the sport of wrestling, coaches continually emphasize the need to keep moving. If a wrestler attempts one move and that effort fails, he must try another move—IMMEDIATELY. In every wrestling arena, you will hear these words resounding across the mat: Sit-out! Stand-up! Shoot! Move on the whistle! Keep moving! MOVE!
If you quit moving in wrestling, you enable your opponent to tangle you up and pin you to the mat. Being pinned, in this word picture, is non-motility. If you quit moving, you will inevitably lose the ability to move at all.
To gain a greater grasp of motility and non-motility, we need to look no further than the oceans of the world. Naturally, this brings us to the “wonders of the deep” and our subject.
Barnacles are a form of arthropod—like a shrimp or a lobster—but not nearly as tasty. Barnacles are designed for a sedentary life. They don’t even have to move to mate. Barnacles hatch as larvae that swim freely about the ocean. These larvae can sense other barnacles to cluster with and find surfaces to attach to, which includes almost every type of surface.
Barnacles can even stick to Teflon coatings. When they find a spot that suits them, the barnacle larvae secrete a strong bonding glue and grab on. They then grow calcified shells and eat the plankton that washes through their feather-like feeding sensors. Barnacles are non-motile—they stick, eat, and reproduce for their entire lives—all in the same spot.
What a Drag!
Barnacles do one thing exceedingly well—they hang on. For example, barnacles love gray whales. While the whales are young, swimming around in their nursery lagoons, the little barnacles climb aboard. They will stay with that whale through every storm, through every growth spurt, and every 10 to 12 thousand mile migration until the whale dies. The barnacles never let go. They don’t hurt the whales, but they look really ugly.
The Tenacious Barnacle
Barnacles do, however, hurt ships. They cling to vessels that are stationary at anchor or at the pier. Barnacles’ biological adhesive cures underwater. (It works like blood-clotting in a wound.) It is what scientists call “biofouling.” Barnacle’s defensive mechanism will even secrete more glue in response to attempts to scrape the barnacles off. Over time, barnacles can build up so deep on a ship’s hull that the ship will sink.
The United States Navy spends well over 100 million dollars a year on added fuel costs due to the drag of the sedentary but hang-tough barnacles on ship hulls. You might think that an aircraft carrier, underway at around 30 knots (about 35 mph), would be enough to send those pesky critters to Davy Jones’s locker—not a chance. Barnacles resist the fastest nautical speeds and the power of the biggest storms at sea.
Keep Moving
The truth is that some barnacle besets us all. Consider what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Hebrews:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. Hebrews 12:1-2a
Sins, like barnacles, grab on to us. They are ugly and tenacious. They can slow us down and drag us to the bottom.
Human Barnacles
Some people are not only overwhelmed by barnacles—they are barnacles. These are the kinds of individuals that often cause needless conflict, drain time and resources, and can strain emotions to the breaking point—dragging you and your unit down. You may have to work with such individuals, but you must avoid becoming like them.
The way to deal with people like this is to scrape them off the roster of your mind. That means don’t engage with them in arguments, physical encounters, or by reacting, even silently, to their words to you or to others. If you allow these human barnacles to dominate and control your thinking, they will destroy your potential. “He that walks with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed” (Proverbs 13:20).
Full Speed Ahead
Scraping the barnacles off of U.S. Navy ships is a regular duty assignment for many sailors. Likewise, your training assignment is to keep barnacles at bay in your life. You must identify and scrape off any idea or activity—whether sins, attitudes, behaviors, or people—that cling to you, drag down your performance, degrade your capabilities, or send you to the bottom.
Because the barnacles of life are tenacious and very tough to get rid of, eliminating them requires some serious scraping of the soul. The first step in dealing with those foul crustaceans that continually cling to your life and drag you toward the bottom is to tell yourself the truth—openly acknowledging the barnacles are clinging to your life—and how they got there.
“He that covers his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). You must also pivot toward the Lord Jesus, “the Author and Finisher of [your] faith,” and the power of the Spirit of God to “cleanse you from all unrighteousness;” scraping away at the grip that sloth, stagnation, and sin have on your life (1 John 1:8-9; Hebrews 12:1).
Spoiler Alert
As you engage those areas of your life that are pulling you toward the bottom, you will no doubt experience that the Spirit and the flesh are “contrary one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (Galatians 5:17). This means that the harder you scrape, scratch, and scour, you will find those old habits and ideas with their own defensive methods secreting “it’s not that bad,” “what difference will it make” and “don’t worry about it” high strength epoxy at every turn.
The more you hear those calls to resignation and defeat, the more you will know how important it is to gain the victory. Think patience (hupomone=spiritual endurance), and don’t quit (Proverbs 24:10). You must stick to this more tenaciously than the barnacles stick to you. This is not some effort in self-awareness, “life coaching,” or “do’s and don’ts.” Those approaches amount to nothing more than reforming the flesh with rules and regimentation.
God doesn’t reform you; He grows you, and that requires that you “walk in the Spirit” lest you” fulfill the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). That always requires “growth in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). One more thing to remember: IT ALL TAKES TIME. Your eternal life is not a “flash in the pan.” God is preparing you from and for eternity.
Your assigned mission and the battles you face require you to stay afloat. If you find yourself taking on water, listing to one side, or sinking to the bottom, you probably need to look just below the waterline; you know, the areas where no one else can see.
So keep moving, start scraping, and be prepared to answer the command: “Full speed ahead.”
Harper sends