Saturday, February 13, 2021
Down Which Road to Where
Will God’s Work as Saints
Take Us This Day?
Psalm 67:2
May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us: Selah That your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations Let the peoples praise you, O God.
John 1:16
From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
Words of Grace For Today
In a warmer climate than mine, a group of friends ventured out from their hotel to go sight seeing. They were on a Spring Break tour, something usually reserved for college students. These were people in a collective mid-life crisis, as it were, seeking some evidence they mattered in life still, even though the vigour of their youth had disappeared, for some decades ago, for others only years ago.
When one man described them as a diverse collection of ‘old farts’ he was pretty spot on, if you allow that some 40 year-olds enter this category way too early in life. They included a sampling of a number of races and genders. They were not as a group too pale.
When a tourist hawker saw them he approached as a few others had, and offered to ferry them as a group in a pontoon boat around the outlying islands. The idea took off like wildfire. It was a lazy way to do nothing while being able to convince themselves they were doing something very adventuresome. They set a time to meet again at the pontoon boat’s dock, going in various directions to collect supplies for the day, food, water, alcohol (mostly rum), and some sun umbrellas.
It was a motley crew that set loose from the dock on what appeared to be a more motley collection of flotation things (some barrels) under wood planks with more than a few gas cans, two outboard motors, and the requisite rudder. There were half enough chairs for the crises-escaping group. One man, George, who was kind of a leader more than a participant, offered (wisely it turned out) to stay behind as ‘a safety reporting person’ he said. ‘Call me if you run into trouble,’ he called out, as if the groups was not in trouble already the minute they left together on this trip.
Two hours later George received a call, recognized the voice, ‘We’re sinking near the reef behin ….’ then the connection went dead. True to his promise he remarkably quickly found a ‘rescue service’, gave them the exact account with times and word-for-word the call. They recognized where the pontoon had most likely gone down and headed out in three larger boats. ‘We need two for the people and one to hold the other two against the current,’ they explained and added that it would be thousands of dollars per hour for each boat.
Out near the reef, the mostly sober pontoon ‘owner’ (actually an assembler of junk into something that might just float) had succumbed to the cries of the surely not sober passengers yelling that they wanted to see the reef. ‘Closer! Closer!’ With no notice the calm waters whirled into a ‘rip tide’ effect right under their pontoon, one stream going out, the other 2 feet away going in toward the reef. It whipped the poor ‘boat’ around and around until it came apart like matchsticks falling out of their box, spilling the people into the water. Luckily as quick as the rip started it ended, and they found themselves in the water pretty much as a group. The stragglers soon enough found their way to the group, everyone hanging on to flotsam or treading water nearby. Considering their state of sobriety the group did well for the first while … until the first circling fin was spotted.
More than one panicked, thrashing about trying to get out of the water. The one fin was joined by others. The more thrashing, the closer they came. One person panicked entirely and set out for the spot on the reef that stood out of the water. Grant, a millionaire developer, almost made it before a slight current caught him and whipped him against a sharp rock. Blood coloured the water for a bare minute before fin after fin swung in and back out as he disappeared beneath the surface.
Finally one sane head among the whole group caught their horrified attention in the moment they all went silent watching Grant’s disappearance. ‘Quiet! Listen! Calm Down! The more you thrash about and make noise the more they will come after us. We have to trust that George will be here soon enough to save us! If we do not trust a rescue is on it’s way, calm down and do what we can together, none of us will survive this! So Stay CALM!’
His advice took hold. The group gathered themselves together with pieces of flotsam deepest in the water making a ring around them. Just minutes later, though it felt to the group like hours, the ‘rescue service’ arrived, tethered two boats to the third so the two could approach the group. Out came the high power rifles and more than one fin trailed away with a dark streak behind it, others collecting around the streak until all the fins were out of sight.
One by one the crises-escapees were pulled from the real crisis they had driven themselves to seek out. One by one they came to their thankful senses about how fortunate they were as on the return trip the ‘rescue service’ exclaimed that this was the first time they had ever found a live person to rescue. The predators usually cleaned up the tourists’ messes long before they could arrive.
There was no hesitation at paying the exorbitant rescue fee. More than one person rescued was ready to offer them everything. One old hippy offered the remainder of her days on earth. Such it is when people are rescued from real danger that they create for themselves.
We all ought to know this from our own experiences before God.
From God’s fullness we have all received, grace upon grace and we ought to be ready to offer God all we have including all our remaining days.
Each one of our remaining days begins with an appropriate prayer of thanks: May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us: Selah May God’s way of grace upon grace may be made known upon earth, and God’s saving power among all nations! Let the peoples praise you, O God!
God sends ‘Georges’ and ‘rescue services’ of many kinds to save us again and again and again from our foolish sins. God often uses us, all we have and all the days we have left on earth, to rescue others. We become God’s ‘Georges’ and ‘rescue services’, more commonly referred to as saints.
There is much for us to do as God-made saints. If we do not start today, when then are we going to start!?!