Sixteen years ago I saw firsthand how “missing the mark” causes great ruin. I worked for Upjohn Healthcare, and I was one of two national emergency responders, handling sensitive situations for the federal drug testing programs Upjohn administered.

In the early evening of March 24, 1989, I received a never-to-be-forgotten phone call. At 12:04 a.m., the fully-laden supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. I was being called to handle the post-accident drug testing of the two vessel traffic controllers working in the radar shack in Port Valdez. So I left Atlanta Saturday evening for Alaska.

By the time I arrived in Anchorage late Sunday morning, to make the six-hour scenic drive to Port Valdez, the oil slick was already reported to be the size of Delaware. How much oil was spilled?

By the time I arrived in Anchorage... the oil slick was already reported to be the size of Delaware.

“[At a minimum estimate] approximately 11 million gallons or 257,000 barrels or 38,800 metric tons . . . Picture the swimming pool at your school or in your community. The amount of spilled crude oil was roughly equivalent to 125 Olympic-sized swimming pools” (Details About the Accident, http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/facts/details.html).

As we descended into Anchorage, a huge black oil slick surrounded the shipwreck. Like other memories from that trip, I have never forgotten that sight. Billions of clean-up dollars were ultimately spent. Wildlife was decimated. Fishing and tourism suffered greatly. And lives were ruined.

Lesson learned

Out of many lessons, one is, the disaster could have been avoided! In a nutshell, Exxon Valdez requested permission to go outside the normal shipping lane due to icebergs. That was OK. However, the tanker went beyond that approval. No one corrected the error—not the vessel traffic controllers in Port Valdez and not the ship’s crew. The ship’s crew did not even call for help as they discovered they were in trouble.

I stayed with the Coast Guard commander in Port Valdez, and he told me the call that awoke him was around 12:30 a.m. He answered, “This better be good!” and the relief vessel traffic controller said, “It’s the big one!”

Other factors involved in the accident included crew fatigue, possible drunkenness, probable drug use ashore, shipboard laxness and carelessness in following company and maritime protocols, etc. Like Titanic, the Valdez nightmare was also a tragedy of preventable errors, as the official report read:

“Until the Exxon Valdez piled onto Bligh Reef, the system had worked perhaps too well… A general complacency had come to permeate the operation and oversight of the entire system. That complacency and success were shattered…” (emphasis added).

The report’s conclusion was that the shipwreck was more than the one error of a possibly drunken skipper. It was the result of “gradual degradation of oversight and safety practices that had been intended, 12 years before, to safeguard and backstop the inevitable mistakes of human beings.”

Of course! Any child’s protractor shows us that being off course just 1 degree will, over time, create a huge divergence.

A personal reminder

In remembering my Alaska adventure, I was reminded that I, too, so easily miss the mark. We cannot be complacent in our Christian lives. If we are not on guard, vigilant and sober, as admonished in 1 Peter 5:8, we eventually “miss the mark.” Missing the mark is one of the ways the Bible defines “sin.”

We cannot be complacent in our Christian lives. If we are not on guard, vigilant and sober, as admonished in 1 Peter 5:8, we eventually “miss the mark.”
Oh, this typically doesn’t happen all at once, does it? James warns us we are tempted for a while before we actually give in to the temptation and sin (James 1:14-16). It takes time and lots of unrecognized mistakes to turn a 230,000-ton supertanker off course. And it takes time to turn back. Once disaster looms, whether a huge iceberg or a small hidden rock spur, a ship can’t just turn on a dime. It is not possible to suddenly stop and turn back to avoid the terrible penalties of missing the mark. The same can be true for us.

I’m not talking about the occasional sins, setbacks or weaknesses we all struggle with. I am talking about the big one! It is possible for us to miss the mark. It sobers me that we can spend our entire lives in the Church of God and still not get it or still not turn. Worse, we can spend our lives doing right and then turn away at the end, and all our previous good gushes out the gash in the shipwrecked hull of our life.

When we get off course, we are on the verge of total ruin, as Solomon described in Proverbs 5:14. But ruin is not God’s will for you and me. God wants us to stay on course, to avoid the reefs that will surely rip us to shreds and cause our precious cargo of oil—God’s Holy Spirit—to leak away!

To stay the course, we need to follow the rules—God’s law. We need to be involved in His Church, and maybe ask for more input from the ministry, who are there as friends and mentors to help us guide our lives safely through the turbulent narrows full of icebergs and rock spurs. And most of all, we need to keep the true Pilot, Jesus Christ, at the helm of our ship of life.

In the same boat

I am grateful God allowed me to be present for the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Although I’ve known some turbulence since then, it changed my life. The Alaska trip gave me an inside perspective, with valuable life lessons learned. For me, missing the mark requires no effort: it is as easy as breathing the air Satan corrupts. I can get up off my knees and sin—and I desperately need God’s forgiveness all over again. You and I are in the same boat.

But God is our true Captain, and He has given us a trustworthy Helmsman—Jesus Christ. He sees the icebergs ahead that could sink us, and He knows the narrows, for He has successfully navigated these waters. God promises to lead us out of the turbulent straits into peaceful waters. If we will just listen to our Captain and Helmsman, we will not run aground, we will stay full of oil, and we will make our port—the Kingdom of God.