ADJUSTING YOUR SAILS

"Among the many beautiful posters made, there is one called VICTORY. It's a picture of a group of sailboats racing on the water, with their colorful sails billowing in the wind. The caption beneath it reads, 'You can't control the winds. The race can only be won if you have the ability to adjust your sails.'

"Pete Goss is an expert yachtsman whose dream was to win a solo, nonstop, round-the-world yacht race. His extraordinary story of triumph over adversity is told in his book, CLOSE TO THE WIND. Over a period of ten years, Goss made many personal sacrifices in order to achieve his dream, including selling his house and his car to help finance and build his boat, the Aqua Quorum." Finally, on November 3, 1996, he set sail in the race of his life, the Vendee Globe.

"He was doing well in the race, overcoming incredible challenges and dangers and managing high winds with waves as high as six-story buildings. Then, in the midst of the race, his radio picked up a message that 160 miles behind him, one of his competitors was in desperate trouble and needed help. At this point, Goss made the historic decision to give up his chance of winning the race, to 'adjust his sails,' and go the Second Mile.

"He turned his small craft into a deadly hurricane in an attempt to find and rescue a man he barely knew, a stranger lost on a life raft somewhere in the vast expanse of the ocean. Somehow, unbelievably, he managed to rescue the man and was able to complete the race. When he finally reached the finish line, Goss was welcomed home by a crown of 150,000 people who had gathered 'to cheer not the race's winner but its hero.'

"Pete Goss came in fifth, but he won the VICTORY by going the Second Mile. Real VICTORY is not about winning races. It's about living a life of significance. Most of us aren't faced with this kind of life-or-death choice, but we all have circumstances in our lives that try our patience and test our endurance, situations that require us to focus on something greater than ourselves." (from "THE SECOND MILE,"? pages 121-122, by Paula J. Fox)

God grant that when we are faced with such testing, we may, by His grace, endure.

"THE SECOND MILE" is available at: 
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