The U.S.S. Olympia is a 5,500-ton cruiser-class battleship that was built for and used by the United States Navy. She was launched on her maiden voyage in 1892 from San Francisco, California. She was chosen to serve as the flagship of the Asiatic Squadron during the Spanish-American war. She played a pivotal role in the Battle of Manila Bay in 1899 which resulted in the sinking or capture of the entire Spanish Pacific fleet. She saw duty during World War I and took part in the 1918 Allied landing at Murmansk during the Russian Civil War. Her final mission was bringing home the body of World War I's Unknown Soldier from France in 1921. This sturdy vessel was decommissioned for the final time in 1922. For nearly thirty years, the Olympia took all that the enemy could fire at her and proved to be unsinkable.
Oddly enough, it is inactivity and inattention that are proving to be the Olympia’s downfall. Since 1945, she has been sitting idle in the water near a dock in the Delaware River near Philadelphia. Her steel hull has been badly corroded. Some patching has been done, but the cost of the necessary repairs and restoration needed to keep her afloat are prohibitive. But if something is not done soon, she will sink where she sits. Ironically, what two wars and enemy attacks failed to do, rust now seems poised to accomplish (Sources: en.wikipedia.org and news.yahoo.com).
While I have no statistics to prove it, I’m beginning to believe that inactivity causes more Christian casualties than the wounds of spiritual warfare. Sitting on the sidelines can actually be more dangerous to faith than engaging the enemy. When children of God begin to pull back from active involvement in the body of Christ, spiritual rust starts to eat holes in the hull of their faith. To be useful, faith needs to be exercised, not mothballed. Could that be why we are encouraged to be “...always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58)?
God loves you!
Mike
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