In the garden the serpent showed me the fruit With a beauty and fragrance within But I did not know that its razor-sharp seed Lay hidden down under its skin
It glowed with desire and was sweet to the taste With a promise of wisdom and powers But its poison-tipped blade cut right to my heart Leaving sin among withering flowers
Oh where is the healing, and where is the balm For my heart and my soul and my mind? A pathway to carry me all the way home And the Father who I left behind
Then suddenly I saw I was there at the cross And I wept at the wound in His side And the nails and the crown and the noise of the crowd And His blood that flowed down like the tide
I saw in His hand was the husk of that fruit Filled with vinegar and bitter gall That was pressed to the lips of my Savior that He Would taste for the sins of us all Would taste for the sins of us all
They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.” Matthew 27:34 KJV
This morning, we are once more, right dead center in the track of another hurricane and making preparations to evacuate. I wish I could tell you that I have wonderful, sweet peace just trusting in Jesus: but that would be a fairy tale. In reality I am stressed and checking the forecast and radar images wondering when we should leave and what will become of our home. When Hurricane Helene passed by last week, it left flooding on a scale I have never seen. Thousands of people including several friends of ours have been forced to move out until they have major repairs done. One dear sister came to live with us a few days ago and last night all we began packing to move even further inland. While I was tossing and turning in bed, I began remembering three men who managed to sleep soundly in their storms. Today I just wanted to take a look at one of them, whose name was Jonah.
But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD...…But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. Jonah 1:2;4b NIV
Sometimes we find ourselves in the middle of storms of our own choosing. The Bible calls the choices that lead to these kinds of storms sin. Like Jonah, we know what God wants, yet rather than obeying we, “Flee from the Lord.” Maybe like Jonah, we should have known better. After all, Jonah was a prophet, he knew the Bible backwards and forwards and had spent his entire adult life teaching other people how God wanted them to live. But when God came to Jonah with the assignment of preaching to people that weren’t his friends, his neighbors, or even from his own nation, he decided he had a better idea: run! Instead of heading where God called him, Jonah got on a boat going in the opposite direction and then went into his cabin and fell sound asleep. Now sleeping in a storm sounds like a wonderful privilege of those who love God, but Jonah was really just falling asleep at the switch. Jonah might have thought God would just let him off the hook, but he soon found out that running from God’s was a very poor business model, because God sent a storm. The funny thing about this part of the story is that everyone but Jonah figured out that something was wrong. The sailors were all doing their best to keep the ship from sinking, they were even urgently praying to their idols for help. Finally, when the captain of the boat went looking for this strange fellow who wasn’t helping out and found him snoozing in his hammock. The shocked captain grabbed Jonah by the shoulder asking, “How in the world can you sleep in this?” Isn’t it amazing how God sometimes sends the most unlikely person to confront us about our sins. The bartender tells us we have had too much to drink. The policeman pulls us over or the doctor asks why in the world we keep eating so much ice cream when our cholesterol is through the roof! You see God has ways of getting his way with or without our permission and sometimes He uses a storm. It isn’t that God likes to see us suffer or gets amusement by watching us run frantically in circles. The problems He sends put us in a corner because He cares about us. If we will just wake up and listen, we will hear His voice calling us back even above the howling of the wind and the crashing of the thunder. So, if we are facing a storm, maybe the first question we need to ask, is: “Am I running from God’s plans?”. In the end God will have his way – anyway. So, why not line up your way with God’s way? When you do, before you know it, He will calm the storm and lead you safely home!
Known worldwide as a symbol of American freedom, the Statue of Liberty was actually a gift to the American people funded by people from all around the world with its design and planning done by the nation of France. Though I had seen it from the air, I didn’t have the chance to visit the statue up close and personal, until just a few years ago with some friends of ours. As we began to enter, I noticed on a wall inside the base an inscription written by the American poet Emma Lazarus. This was a poem she had originally written as part of an effort to raise funds for the project. Though the statue itself was dedicated and opened to the public in 1886, her poem was forgotten. But friends of Emma remembered her words and continued to lobby for them to be included until finally a bronze plaque with her timeless lines was added in 1903. Its second verse which is most remembered says:
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
As we approach Memorial Day I am thankful for the freedoms I can enjoy because of the sacrifice of so many men and women who died defending the ideas behind the lines on the Statue of Liberty. But those words should also remind us of another person who came to offer an even greater freedom to captives, 2,000 years ago. His name was Jesus and He did not raise a torch, but instead He Himself was raised up and nailed to a cross. There He suffered and died in exchange for freedom from sin and death for anyone who would come to Him in faith. Today, Jesus is still calling out. His words are not etched on a bronze plaque instead they are but by the spoken by Holy Spirit in our hearts.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 ESV
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