Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O Lord, for Your steadfast love is good; according to Your abundant mercy, turn to me. Psalm 69:16-17

Now we know why the Titanic sunk.

Maybe.

According to a new book, "What Really Sank The Titanic," some metallurgists are blaming bad rivets for the ships demise. Rather than using high quality rivets to put the ship together, in some places the company decided to use fasteners, which were of a poorer quality.

Rivets with too much slag in them are brittle and more easily broken.

The metallurgists put forth it was bad quality rivets that sent the Titanic to the bottom with a loss of 1,500 lives.

In reply, Joris Minne, the spokesman for Harland and Wolff, the company that built the Titanic, said, "We always say there was nothing wrong with the Titanic when it left here."

So, what really sank the Titanic? My personal theory is a simple one: the ship ran into an iceberg, which put a very large hole in the side of the ship. A big hole means lots of water inside the ship. Lots of water inside the ship means you sink. That may sound like a bit of oversimplification, but the cause probably didn't make a difference to the people who saw the unsinkable ship slipping out from under their feet.

When your ship is sinking, you simply don't care if the cause for the vessel's demise is rivets with too high slag content, or brittle sheets of metal in the hull, or even if someone opened up a door in the ship's basement. The fact is this: your ship is going down and you're going with it.

There is one other fact that is important: when nobody else can help, God can. The Psalm verses, which serve as the theme for this devotion, might easily have been written by one of those passengers, or by one of us who find our confidence in something or someone has been misplaced. Listen once more: let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O Lord, for Your steadfast love is good.

It is quite possible, in these difficult economic times, you may feel your Titanic is going down. You may think the people or the things you have trusted have proven to be unreliable. If so, be turned to the Lord who sent His Son to live, die, and rise so we might be saved. Be turned to Him who has always shown He is trustworthy.

THE PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, so many things we have trusted show they can't be. When things are slipping out from under us, when we feel we are sinking, let us always remember Your steadfast love is there. With Jesus as our Savior and Friend, we know the deep can never swallow us up. In His Name. Amen.

In Christ I remain His servant and yours,

Today's Bible Readings: 1 Samuel 30-31    Luke 24:1-35

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