Mug of Mercy

Last Sunday we sang a great hymn in worship service…  “Hallelujah, What A Savior!”   It was a classic by one of my all-time favorite hymn writers, Phillip P. Bliss.  Phillip also wrote the hymn “I Will Sing of My Redeemer” — another of my favorites.   He also was topic of another research project that have studied in depth: The Ashtabula Rail Disaster of 1876.

It is somehow ironic that Phillip would perish in such a tragedy while trying to rescue his wife, while the incident itself was a showcase of human greed, politics and looting.   The scene was a gruesome one, and a showcase expression of “all things bad” of a human condition of the heart.  This however is not the main purpose of today’s post — although I may ramble on upon the topic someday as I continue to digest the disaster.   As I study the history, I shake my head in the amazement that people could treat others in such a way.

I guess I have gone so hopelessly off topic by now, I will include this link for those wishing to study the incident for themselves: The Ashtabula Horror

Both Phillip and wife are buried amongst the unrecognized dead.

Remember the hymn?  Bliss’s inspiration was the book of Isaiah, Chapter 53.   The prophet Isaiah wrote these words almost 700 years before Jesus was even born, yet describing Him:

¹ Who has believed our message?  To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
² My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground.   There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him.
³ He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.  We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.  He was despised, and we did not care.
⁴ Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;  it was our sorrows that weighed him down.  And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,  a punishment for his own sins!
⁵ But he was pierced for our rebellion,  crushed for our sins.  He was beaten so we could be whole.  He was whipped so we could be healed.
⁶ All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.  We have left God’s paths to follow our own.  Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.
⁷ He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word.  He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.  And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.
⁸ Unjustly condemned, he was led away.  No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream.  But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people.
⁹ He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone.  But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave.
¹⁰ But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief.  Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants.  He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
¹¹ When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins.
¹² I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death.  He was counted among the rebels.  He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.

OK…  Am I the only one about ready to jump out of my seat and yell Hallelujah?  Isaiah wrote this 700 years before Christ was born!  No Internet, no newspapers, public library…  No mass media…  Am I the only one impressed by this?  I am sure the scoffers would cry foul, somehow… But to those of us who are no longer blinded, THIS is the stuff faith is made of!

Apparently Phillip Bliss must have realized the same great prophesy of our Savior way back in 1875:

Quite honestly, I could go off in many directions.  What I do know is that I have to share the details of what happened today.  Moreover, It’s an outside look into a problem, a prayer and the providence of God.

In all, today started to be just another day at work.    Nothing exceptional.   Today was going to be way more exciting for Irene and the kids who were going to get out, go out into the country and pick strawberries.  In talking to Irene around 8:30am, that was the plan.

At 11:15 I received a call from Irene, frantic, in tears telling me that I had to come and pick up the kids and herself, stranded out in the county.  Something was wrong with the truck, and it wasn’t drivable.

Here’s what SHOULD have happened, in MY perfect world.  Maybe it’s what would have happened in your world too, I don’t know…  What should have happened was Irene would have called me to tell me what there was a problem with the truck, right after she called the AAA, who was going to send a wrecker to take her and the kids to the nearest repair facility which would have charged us some eyebrow raising price for the repair that I would have freaked out about, but paid and complained about on Facebook later.

On the other hand… None of those things were an option.  We used to have the AAA back in another time and place, before children, wage freezes, cost savings days, huge medical co-pays and gas prices over a dollar more per gallon then they were a year ago.    It’s really a good thing to have…  but it got axed a few years back.   That means that if I needed to get the truck towed, I was probably looking at $100 or more.

That in itself was a problem.   I’m two days away from payday.  All together, I think I have about $20 total between all my accounts.  I don’t own a credit card — not even one for emergencies.

If your tracking with me, my mind is in turmoil.  My family is stranded, in the heat on a back country road.  Fortunately, I was actually in my office.  On any given day, I could have been anywhere in a six county radius — but today I was local.

Calling my boss and explaining the situation, I arranged time off.   I jumped in the car, started heading in the direction of my family, and called Irene back to get my bearings straight.

Her description of what was happening with the truck was not promising.  I had NO CLUE what I was going to do when I got there.

My families safety of course was paramount.  I figured I could at least pick them up and take them home.   As for the truck, I had no clue.  I’m not a mechanic, I can handle SOME stuff, but I just hoped maybe I could at least drive the truck home slow, and it would probably sit broken until I could get it fixed.

Hanging up the phone with Irene, I was beside myself.   There was NOTHING AT ALL I could do in my own power.  NO RESOURCES.   NOBODY I COULD CALL.   I have over 500 Facebook friends, and you think there was ONE PERSON I could call for help who I felt close enough too and had their number?   I have no family to call…  Just helpless, and alone.

Isn’t it funny that when we get in this place, it’s THEN that we look up to God?  The creator of the universe, the author and finisher of our faith — And I have to reach the end of my own resources to really lay it all out there.

I mean, I do pray — but there was something about today that I realized I HAD NOTHING in my own power.  I was fully dependent on HIS answer, whatever it was.

My prayer was  simple.  Lord Jesus PLEASE!  I have NOTHING HERE.  I don’t have the finances, I don’t have the tools, I barely have enough gas, I’m out skilled, I have NOBODY I can call…. PLEASE HELP ME!

The next couple of miles were spent in quiet reflection.  We have really had some rough times in the last couple of years.  We have seen the miracles of God in ways that still can’t be described.   It’s all been HIM… Everything that was done in our own merit and power was gone.   I think it’s times like this, when we are fully dependent on Him for the outcome, it is then that the miracles come in ways we really don’t expect.

A strange sense of knowing that it would be OK fell over me…

And as quick as that peace came, the storm of thoughts waged war with my peace and faith.  Thoughts of doubt, worry and calamity.  I thought of the faces of my children crying, my wife in anguish…  The thoughts of having to have the truck towed away for scrap just to have it removed from the roadway, or having the truck broke into if I had to leave it parked on the side of the road.

I kept thinking back to the past, to the times when God had delivered us.  Time and time again…

When I pulled up to where Irene was, there was a flurry of activity.   A woman was there, talking to Irene.  A man was laying on the ground under the truck looking at whatever it was that needed fixed.    The man had rigged something up so Irene could pull the truck into his driveway.  It was temporary, and there was no way the truck would have made it all the way home.  I got back in the car and followed the parade up the road to where our truck would be off the road.

Upon arriving there, I looked over at my wife and quietly asked her where our children were?

The other woman who was talking to Irene announced that they “were over her house looking at the chickens.”  I figured since Irene was OK with this that it was OK with me too.   Back to the truck.

We all had introductions… Funny thing was that the lady with the chickens, didn’t know the man with the driveway we were now in.  Irene and I introduced ourselves, and they introduced themselves to each other.

The woman’s name was Crystal, and the man’s name was Matthew.  Matthew announced that I needed a tie-rod end, and a ball joint.    I nodded my head.    He flipped open his cell phone and made a few calls.   As it worked out, we were now stranded in Matthew’s driveway, in front of the garage where he repairs trucks as a mechanic.  (Isn’t God Good? )

Matthew told me to go and pick up the parts, and he would be happy to install them on the truck.  Irene and I creatively floated a check at the local grocery store until tomorrow to get some cash, and picked up the parts.    Grand total for the part?  $20.  I offered to pay Matthew, but he wouldn’t take any more than “Beer money.”  That was way more than fair.   Long story short… Everybody is safe.  The truck lives.  God is good!

This is the part of me, that makes me who I am.  I analyze things.

Some observations:   Despite the media’s attempt to convince us that the world is a really rotten place, there are still people willing to throw caution to the wind and help.

The Lord provides.  It may not always be the way we envision it, or the way we THINK He should provide for us…  But He always takes care of our needs.  Our God loved us so completely today, and even took care of every single detail down to my children even getting to see chickens out in the country.

As for myself… I am humbled.    This entire period of my life has been a period of getting over token prayers, and lip service and realizing that really, there is NOTHING we can do for God.  Our riches don’t impress Him, and even at our best our righteousness is as filthy rags.

His love for us, however is amazing.  He provides a way when there is no other way.

Hey Russ — “Your coming on awfully strong…”   “You need to preach a God of LOVE and GRACE.”    “Glad your SAVED — But it’s almost like your TOO SAVED.”

If you seen a blind man walking toward a 500 foot cliff, would you yell out to him and say — “Um, excuse me, I don’t want to offend you you in any way, but your about to stroll off a cliff.  That may be a tad uncomfortable if you do.  Maybe you might want to change your direction.”

Or would you yell out and say: “Hey!  Stop! Your gonna die.  Turn around!”

Look… I’m gonna be brutally honest.  Brutal to myself, mostly — Because to coin a phrase, “I got nothing.”  In myself, anyway.    I’m NOT perfect.  I’ve made tons of mistakes, and I’ve done things I said I would never done.   I’m easily addicted to just about anything, and I’ve struggled with many things all of my life.

I’m not a rich man, and I’m lousy at finances.  I can tell you what it’s like to have your house foreclosed upon, and I figure we were about a week or two from being homeless.    We can bring in all my faults, and I can frankly say without reservation, I am a “Wretch.”     There is nothing in me that is good.   I’m a hypocrite in the highest degree.

Through all of the “trauma and drama” of my life, I can only claim one thing I did right in my life:  I realized that I can’t do anything in my own power.    I realized that the reason I can do ANYTHING is because of Jesus Christ.

If made mention in my posts on how 150,000 people will die today.   Most of those were NOT planned, and probably came as a complete shock to not only the families who loved them, but to the person themselves.   One day, they were planning vacations, living life, watching American Idol and Glee, Going on Facebook, and planning their retirement…  Then — Death.  Game over.   What happened?

Why are we here on this Earth, anyway… And what happens AFTER you die?

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” – Hebrews 9:27

What’s it all about?    And WHY do I, who on my own have NOTHING good to offer you, have messed up more times than I can count, step out and yell “STOP — Your walking towards a cliff!  TURN AROUND!”   Because my “goodness” has nothing to do with the fact that people are walking off that cliff like LEMMINGS.

“Young men and old men, and sisters of all ages, if you love the Lord, get a passion for souls. Do you not see them? They are going down to hell by the thousands.” — Charles Spurgeon

Here is what truly amazes me.  God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son to pay a price for a crime he didn’t commit.   Not one of us deserves this gift, especially the likes of me.   Because he paid that price so I may stand blameless before God, It is my place to put my wrongs behind me, and walk the other direction.

I see an urgency.  Last week I posted a quote from Karl Barth (theologian extraordinaire), “We must hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.”  Look around at the world.  Read the news, folks.  Tsunamis.  War.  Earthquakes.  Famine.  Global finance.   The Bible talks about this too.

“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” — Matthew Chapter 24

The verse states that these things have to happen, although it is NOT the end, the end is coming…

“Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day. God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change. ” — 2 Peter 3:9 (The Message)

“Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left.  Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.  Watch therefore, for you do not know what houryour Lord is coming.  But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.  Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” — Matthew 24:40-44

Two men were playing Wii — One will be taken, and the other left.  Two woman will be watching Glee, one will be taken and the other left…   We should be careful how we spend our days, and what we have on our minds.   It amazes me how 10,000 people just died in Japan, and how it really didn’t phase our American lifestyle one little bit.  I still know people who are traveling about, and paying no attention to this catastrophe.   We are BLIND.   We are ALL walking towards a very large cliff, and death is certain for ALL of us.

We NEED a Savior.   Check out: http://www.areyouagoodperson.org Are you GOOD ENOUGH?