Insight for the Journey

Some of you may have seen the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks. If you’ve never seen that movie, it’s too late. I’m going to ruin it for you right now!

Tom Hanks plays a guy named Chuck who is marooned on an island for four years after a plane crash. He has a dull routine every day, and finally he gives way to despair. He starts to commit suicide. But at the last minute that is thwarted.

The next day, after almost committing suicide, the tide brings in a piece of metal that he determines can be used as a sail for a raft to get him off the island. When that is completed he sails off, and 500 miles away he is rescued by a ship.

He had been on the island four years.

He gets back home and sees his fiancé. She has kept him alive in memory and, understandably, has married someone else. He is devastated!

But then he says at the end of the movie, “I know what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will come up …and you never know what the tide might bring in.” And just about that time a pretty girl comes by.

The life of most Christians I know is not easy, prominent or glamorous. Sometimes life on this planet leaves us feeling isolated and forgotten, hurting and even struggling to maintain hope.

When that happens, what do you do?

You just keep breathing, keep plugging along in the power of the Holy Spirit. But you never lose hope. Because tomorrow the sun will come up and you don’t know what new mercies the tide of God’s will has in store for those who love him.

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Christianity is based on miracles! The birth of Christ, the life and ministry of Christ, His resurrection and ascension … all of these are miracles. One day He will return in power to this earth. That is also a…, you guessed it, a miracle. Christianity is solidly founded on a series of amazing miracles.

Why is it then that many Christians struggle with the idea of miracles? More specifically, why do many struggle with the idea of God answering prayer in miraculous ways? I’ve met numerous Christians who were quite clear about the fact they believe every miracle recorded in Scripture. In fact, they can eloquently defend their belief in miracles. But when they hear of a modern miracle, they immediately retort with skepticism: “It’s probably someone’s over-active imagination. I doubt if it really happened like that.”

The result of skepticism in the Christian community has been devastating to our desire to seek God in prayer. If people have no faith that God will respond (with or without miracles) it greatly hampers their willingness to keep on asking, seeking and knocking as Jesus encouraged.

My faith in God’s willingness to sometimes respond miraculously was greatly bolstered in 1985-86 while grading thousands of applications for Amsterdam ’86, an international conference for evangelists. The participants were from 184 countries around the world. Their applications often told of how God had miraculously helped them while conducting their ministry. Let me share two such stories.

Festo Kivengere, a Ugandan Christian missionary and speaker at the conference, tells of fleeing with his family from Idi Amin and crossing the African plains by night into Kenya. The Kivengere family became seriously lost in the blackness of the night on three different occasions, and on all three occasions a stranger mysteriously appeared and pointed them in the right direction. By dawn they arrived safely at their destination.  Kivengere can’t say with certainty that these were angels, or simply people who helped, but someone appeared miraculously to preserve he and his family.

Another contemporary saint with a similar experience is an Indian missionary named Sadhu Sundar Singh. He is a legendary evangelist in India. He tells about preaching in Tibet, where he offended the chief Lama by his proclamation of the gospel. He was thrown down in a well. And the well was sealed with a lid for a covering, and it was locked. He was left there to die. 

In the fall down into the well, his left arm was injured seriously, as he fell among the bones and the rotting flesh of others who had been imprisoned in the same well. For the next three days and nights he prayed constantly and cried out to God. On the third night he said that the door of the well suddenly opened and a rope was lowered. Fortunately it had a hoop in it, because he was unable to hang on by his arms. He put his foot in and held on with one arm as he was pulled up. He got out of the well to find no one there!

He slept that night, and then in the morning went back to the same village and again began preaching Jesus. The Chief Lama was enraged and set out to find who had helped him escape. The subsequent investigation proved that the only key to the lid of the well rested on the belt of the chief Lama himself.

Sundar Singh could not say with certainty that he was rescued by angels, or the invisible hand of God. But there seems to be no logical explanation for his miraculous delivery.

Sometimes God works miraculously in answer to our prayers…

…but not always.

When He doesn’t we must keep on trusting and looking to Him. Genuine faith does not require a miracle a day to keep the Devil away. But as believers in a miracle-working God, we should be open to any miracle God truly wants to perform.

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Last Thursday was a wonderful day!  In the morning I spoke to almost 500 Pastors and other church leaders gathered at The Cove, had meaningful discussions over lunch, and felt really encouraged that God had blessed a lot of people.

In the afternoon I attempted to study for the upcoming weekend sermon, but couldn’t concentrate.  The weather was beautiful in Asheville so I decided to take a walk and enjoy the mountain scenery and pray.

Believe it or not, sometimes I have pity parties.  Yes, sometimes I feel sorry for myself that I don’t have more impact, more influence for God, or more ability.  That shocks some people, but it is true.

During my walk somehow my thoughts turned down pity-party lane.

That’s when it happened!  I felt overwhelmed with gratitude.  I remembered the hardscrabble Tennessee farm on which I grew up, my mother and father and other humble people who guided my early years.  The contrast between that and what I had just experienced hit me with force.  Here I was walking on the gorgeous grounds of The Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove, living the life I’d always dreamed and prayed for.  In addition to a marvelous family in Tennessee, back home in Albany I have a wonderful wife, two wonderful children, a church that loves us, and friends who really care.  I enjoy excellent health, plenty to eat, a meaningful vocation, and lots more!  God seemed to be saying, “My son, if I never did another thing through you, your life is a miracle story of my grace.  What do you have that you did not receive?”

That question is from 1 Corinthians 4:7.  As I thought of it I actually said it out loud and through tears I responded each time, “Nothing Lord.  Everything I have is pure grace.  Everything I have is a grace gift from you.”

The depth of my emotion surprised me.  But there was more.  God then emblazoned another verse on my mind, this time from Ephesians 4:7.  It says, “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”  I had never noticed that last phrase: “as Christ apportioned it.”  In other words, if I was complaining and unhappy that I didn’t have more grace in a certain area of life, more influence or impact, my “beef” was really with Jesus.  My portion of grace was not the result of a random lotto drawing, but the personal choice of my Savior!  I’m still working on that one!

Coincidentally, both verses happened to be from chapter four, verse seven of their respective letters.  So I’ve dubbed it “The 4:7 Principle.”

I’ll never forget that walk.  God met me in a mysterious way with grace and truth.  I returned from it with renewed energy, fresh insight, and a heart brimming with gratitude.

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