Day 140 — All Brought Safely to Land (Acts 27:27-44) | September 12

On the fourteenth night the sailors sensed land. The soundings dropped fast, a hundred twenty feet, then ninety, and the most dangerous moment came right as deliverance got close. Some sailors tried to slip away in the lifeboat, and Paul, who two days earlier had promised every life would be spared, now warned that no one could be saved unless they stayed. Both were true. The promise was certain, and the means God used were the very sailors trying to flee. Faith in God’s sovereignty is never a permission slip to abandon wisdom. Then Paul took bread, gave thanks to God in front of all of them, and ate, while two hundred and seventy-six mostly pagan men watched a prisoner worship in a hurricane. The ship ran aground and broke apart. The soldiers moved to kill the prisoners, and the centurion stopped them because he wanted to save Paul. Grace flowed downstream to a boatload of strangers. Everyone reached the shore, exactly as God had said.