flounder: 1. hesitate in confusion: to act in a way that shows confusion or a lack of purpose
2. be in serious difficulty: to have serious problems and be close to failingflourish: 1. be healthy or grow well: to be strong and healthy or grow well, especially because conditions are right
2. do well: to sustain continuous steady strong growthEncarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
A fish flips its tail. Contorts its body. With vigor it flicks. It flops. It leaps. What determines the progress of these movements? Or the ease of progress? It is the environment, the place in which they take place. What these movements are employed for or against determines their purpose. The fish on dry land flounders. The fish in the depths of the sea flourishes. The difference is where it is placed, and why it struggles.
Strength is given to us for the pursuit of life. For living. To struggle against death is futile. No man has ever achieved victory in a struggle against death. Except one.
Jesus alone has displayed the strength to emerge victoriously from that fight with death. It is in this, in Him, that we must rest. Or rather, have our floundering transformed into flourishing. Once we are moved from the wrong into the right, we soar!
Yes, we are to struggle. But not against death. In vain do any hope of winning that fight. All men die. All. Die. The outcome never changes. The fact that we struggle shows that we truly are meant for life. The fact that we all die shows, just as truly, that something is fatally wrong. If that for which we all struggle is unattained by all, we must pause and ask why. Our obstinacy is somewhat laudable. But our fruitlessness should be revelatory.
We are to struggle towards life. For life. Our deliverance from and victory over death is not within our ability. But it is in God’s. And it is this very victory that He accomplished in Jesus.
We can’t. He can. He has. We must stop and be placed in the right context of movement. Be placed in life. Only then does movement produce progress. It is redeemed from futility. Now when we struggle, we fly. Now we flourish.
The difference arguably is subtle, but it is significant. Certainly to the fish.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Are your efforts being employed in the context for which they were designed? Or do you sense immediate and imminent futility?
Consider your environment. Are you the fish in the desert or the fish in the sea? Are you floundering in the final throes of death or are you flourishing in the vast expanse of life? The context of your existence will define how fruitful your efforts and movements can be. We are all fish born in the middle of the arid dessert. Instinctively we move, albeit without progress. Inevitably we die.
Change of movement isn’t the remedy. Change of environment is. This is illustrated for us in the Bible when we read that being saved means that we have been brought out of one environment and placed in another. The places aren’t desert and sea, but rather dark and light. Dark signifies the original context of our existence. Light, the place into which He brings us (see Colossians 1).
Keep in mind that the fish cannot flop indefinitely and eventually, by rigorous endurance, make it to the sea. In the same way, we cannot dwell indefinitely in the darkness and stumble our way into the light. Our time is limited and our journey is infinite.
Just as the fish needs an external help, we can only make it to the light by being brought by the hands of another. Our environment is changed by the care and compassion of Someone else. It is God who saves us from the dessert and brings us into the sea of life.
FOR OR AGAINST?
The other difference between the fish in the desert and the fish in the sea is purpose. The intense movement of the first is consumed with one end in mind - survival. Just not death. The second has had the death situation resolved, so now all the effort it employs is not against death, but rather for life. It’s end goal is not surviving, but thriving.
For what purpose are the movements of your daily existence employed? Perhaps you find yourself wearied and tired from the struggle against death (in all its forms). Perhaps you’ve known or seen in others a tireless, joyful pursuit of life. The good news for you is that the latter are not doing anything differently from what you’re doing. The difference goes back to environment.
When once you are picked up out of the environment of death (the desert) and placed in the environment you were meant to be in (the sea), the double blessing is that all your movements find their rightful place in life. That former thrashing about is redeemed into a masterful stroke of beauty. Effort once employed futilely against death now flows elegantly in life. The dance is the same. Only now there is music.
“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:13-14
“For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” Colossians 1:29
