Last week, two things happened at sea that captured our attention. One was the terrible disaster off Greek shores that saw the loss of hundreds of people from Pakistan; the second was the loss of the submersible deep down by the wreck of the Titanic, equally sad for the families concerned, though smaller in scale.

It seems to me that these show two important traits of humanity: the need to survive and prosper; and our desire to discover and explore. It is sad when these two wonderful traits lead us into danger, and in these cases death. Although the reasons why these tragedies happened will be complex, on the face of it, it looks like the first was due to greed – that of the people smugglers – and possibly a hard-edged approach from the Greek authorities, and the second, hubris leading to the lack of full and proper testing of new equipment. In both circumstances, at some point people put other issues before the care and protection of the people involved.

The Bible teaches us that we are made in the image of God. This means that all life is precious, and that we are capable of great deeds and wonders. However, we are also taught that we are not equal to God, and that sin – our not-God-ness, if you like – means that we often fail to get the right order of things. Other stuff gets in the way of the good we try to do. Here it seems that the other things got in the way of the greatest gift that God gives us after life itself, that of love for one another.

I was reminded the other day, that Jesus commanded us to love one another; we are to love one another whether we like it or not. To put that another way, we must always put love and care for one another into the equation as we exercise the gifts God has given us, and have it as a priority.

Whether we are aiming to see ourselves and our families survive and prosper, or we are following our desire to discover and explore, as we have seen, if we fail to put love at the front of what we’re doing things can so easily end in disaster.