Most of us would be familiar with those lumpy crustaceans called barnacles which attach themselves to the skin of whales. These freeloaders are also found on the hulls of ships and actually have a negative effect on the speed of the vessel. The accumulation of barnacles on the ship’s hull creates drag as it moves through the water. The end result is the ship uses more fuel due to this problem called biofouling. The removal of these barnacles from merchant and naval boats becomes a necessary priority to keep boat hulls clean.

In our Christian lives we also have a similar “barnacle’ problem. There can be wrong attitudes and habits in our lives which hinder our progress as believers. The result is our Christian lives are handicapped by these personal failures. God wants us to be free of those things which are holding us back spiritually.

As Christians we can all identify with that personal struggle of not doing the things we want to do or vice versa; that is doing what we don’t want to do. So, we have this “barnacle problem” which needs to be removed. The cleaning up of our lives as it were, is something beyond our ability. This is where the grace of Christ comes into operation to deal with the situation. As we depend on Jesus the result will amaze us; those ‘barnacles’ will be removed from our lives.