I am not sure if you heard that a young woman was
pulled from the rubble of the factory in Bangladesh alive Friday of this week.
She had been in the basement trapped for 17 days since the collapse of the
building. The mission on the ground moved from rescue to recovery over two
weeks ago with over 1000 bodies recovered following over 2000 people rescued. Hope for victims remaining alive ceased. Today
with her rescue in good condition, workers said she had no visible injuries and
she was able to walk, hope is renewed. That is amazing. What must she have thought
while trapped? Did she wonder if anyone was looking for her or would ever find
her alive? Did she think of dying from dehydration or hunger? Time will tell as
she tells her story in interviews.
The dog at our house is relentless when one of us is
eating anything. She works the table over and over again with many trips
unfruitful and then suddenly a tidbit finds its way into her mouth. Even when
we say, “No go away,” she continues. We have not trained her very well. She has
trained us better. Yet she persists in hope of food.
I don’t know about you specifically but I would
guess it is true for you that hope does not always spring eternal. It is hard
work butting your head against a wall day after day at work or at home or
church, attempting to complete a task or tougher still trying to motivate another
in one direction or another. With little or no success at all, we are tempted
to throw in the towel, give up, and write them off regardless of calling or
commitment or whatever. We may even see is as a trial or test of our courage,
faith, stamina or endurance. Often we
blame ourselves because we didn’t work harder, try harder, weren’t smart
enough, strong enough, pray enough, preach enough, go enough just something or anything enough, like somehow we
all by ourselves could change the course of human events! We think a lot of our
abilities, don’t we? That is that God Complex from the garden hitting us square
in the face. If we were god we would do it like… But we forget we are NOT god.
So, hope whimpers out the door. What we need is a shift in perspective.
The Christian can
even welcome trouble
2-4 When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your
lives my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends!
Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of
endurance. But let the process go on until that endurance is fully developed,
and you will find you have become men of mature character with the right sort
of independence.
12 The man who patiently endures the
temptations and trials that come to him is the truly happy man. For once his
testing is complete he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has
promised to all who love him.
James
1:2-4, 12 J.B. Phillips
While questions may have come and gone in the mind
of the one trapped for 17 days in the rubble of her work place rescue efforts
were underway beyond her hearing or sight. She had a limited perspective as to
all that was going on. What she knew was where she was. Much like an unborn
child, all she knew was small cramped world where she was trapped and nothing
was happening. James reminds us that when our world feels like that small,
cramped and stifling God is doing more than we know. There is hope and help on
the way. Like my beagle we just need to patiently endure to the next moment,
stop or possibility. In the end upon completion our patient endurance is
rewarded with a crown of life and living.
My beagle almost smiles when she gets a handout
after working so hard. What about you?
In HIS Service and Yours,
BroG
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