Saved!

  Saved! On Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week many of us were watching eagerly to see if the band of highly skilled personnel in Chile could actually pull off one of the greatest rescues of all time. We were shocked a couple of months ago to find out that 33 trapped Chilean miners were even alive. We had presumed they were dead after 17 days. We waited, not really expecting total success as the holes were drilled. We wondered how long those men could stay alive down there. When would hope run out, even if the food didn’t? But, one by one they rode that tiny capsule back into light and life.

What will the future hold for these guys? According to the news reports, some of them already have book and movie deals waiting, one of them has a television offer, one will have to deal with the wife AND the girlfriend that were waiting for him, and all of them will be on David Lettermen this coming week.

Hope is an amazing thing. It can keep people alive when there is nothing else that can. As Scarlett said at the end of Gone With the Wind, “After all . . . Tomorrow is another day!” The whole idea of there being a tomorrow gives us a sense of starting over, of leaving the bad behind and reaching for that which is better. Those miners began tomorrow last week.

Some of you have been waiting for tomorrow. You may have been waiting for it for quite some time. You have struggled through tomorrow looking a whole lot like the yesterday you were hoping to leave behind. You struggle through the life events that show you your checking account is still in the red, your loved one’s health continues to decline, your marriage is still going to end, you continue to be anxious about your children and the direction they seem to be headed.

May I offer you a few words of hope? Jesus Christ made tomorrow. Only because of Christ can something be different. No, unfortunately, I can’t promise you that it WILL be different. You already know the prayers you have offered and the times you have pleaded with God to change your stars. In all of this, most of us are running from something – pain, humiliation, loneliness, fear. It hasn’t worked, has it? Maybe you’re running in the wrong direction, or maybe for the wrong reasons.

Try, instead of running from something, to run to something. When times go bad on you, as they do for most of us sometime during our lives, we let our fear and frustration get the best of us. What Christ asks of us is to, in these times, rely totally on him. Only as the arms of the Holy Spirit wrap around you will you fully realize that your running days can be over, that tomorrow has arrived bringing hope with it.

Peace,

Craig Krueger