Saturday 20 April 2013

The Lifesaver


Today I fell.

Yes, all the way down.

I was walking down the hallway, on the way to my shift at the hospital, for some reason I was thinking about walking and falling, I don’t remember in what context and then down I went.  Sticking, just this far, tipping and then more and then down!  I was humiliated at the halfway down part but then even more humiliated as I went completely down.  Yes, insult and injury. Up ahead, just before I fell, I saw a man coming my way, as I fell, I thought here comes my life saver, he will catch me just in time and I won’t go down at all, I will be saved.  But I wasn’t and he didn’t.

Well, to give him credit, he did try and he did walk past my desk three times to make sure I was okay, I assured him I was and then I didn’t see him again.  But I did go back to the place where I fell, called the cleanup crew and then made sure the cleanup happened.  Still wishing I had been saved, saved from the humiliation, saved from the fall and saved from the inevitable pain that is bound to show up in the next day or two.

Being saved, isn’t that what we all want, to be saved from humiliation that comes from misplaced steps, to be saved from pain, the pain that comes with injury, with suffering and loss?  We want to be saved from the suffering that comes our way from no fault of our own, suffering that interrupts our life as we know it. We want someone to help us, to help me, to save me; we want the interruption to not be an interruption at all.  We want life as is, safe, good, fair, and maybe even perfect with no mistakes in it, left the way we have become used to living it.

Life doesn’t happen that way, messes happen in our hallways and we fall down.  These messy interruptions do not happen to us, getting in our way, messing up our plans…these interruptions are our life, this is what is happening now, do not wish for something else, this is it, live it.

Recently a friend has drawn us in to her interruption, and it’s a big one, she has been sharing her attitude with us daily, over and over again, her son has cancer, her life is happening and she is responding with an attitude of gratitude.  She has chosen it, they all have, their little family, being drawn in to joy despite the suffering of the pain.
   
She has been giving thanks to God, to her friends, to her family and even to strangers who are simply doing their jobs in the messy hallways; to her, these have all been life savers.
 
Lifesavers.
 
That’s what we want…people coming along side lifting us up, giving us support and encouragement…Lifesavers…knowing that, ultimately, all of these have been placed in our way by God.  

Yes, Him too, encouraging us on in every step we take, all through the messed up hallways reminding us that He is the life saver.

God, the ultimate Lifesaver…I love that.  

Wednesday 10 April 2013

He will Never?

I was reading a magazine article and I came across something that stood out in my mind.  It stopped me cold, it thumped against my heart and ricocheted back and forth there for a while and I thought it not true.

Regarding God and His salvation, Pierre Gilbert writes He will never take anyone against his or her will…really?  Pierre goes on to say that it's as if  to sign permission before God can make a move...truly?

What about miracles?  What about grace? 
 
To say that God needs our permission to have Him respond with us is to say that it all depends on us.  I can’t see that this can be true.  In fact the truth is that God first loved us, the truth is He acts first and then we act.  To say that we need to give permission for Him to act in us is to say that we are the one that matters.
 
God can, God will and God does act despite us, whether we have given permission or not, He does not wait for us to make the first move.  No, He moves first.  Sometimes, He rushes in like He did with Saul, knocking the wind out of you, sometimes He lights a fire right in front of you, sometimes He calls you out of the fields and blesses you. Sometimes despite everything you do, He says you are a man after His own heart and sometimes He says here is the way walk in it.

God does not need permission to do what He has in mind to do.  If He wants you, there is none who can stop Him, nothing you do, nothing you say and nothing you sign.  We have all heard the stories, miracles told of how God saved, how He redeemed and how He did everything to bring some to their knees…God moves people.  It is God who finds us where we are and moves us to Him.

It's as if God ‘signed the papers’ they are signed in creation, signed on the rainbow and then signed again in blood sealed with the cross.

Any signing we do only has to do with being faithful, trusting, loving and following a God who loved us first.

He will take anyone against their will, if He wills it, He will do it.  And we will be amazed at the miracle…and we will be amazed at God’s grace.

For it is by grace we have been saved, not from ourselves, it is the gift of God.

I love that.