You! Under The Rubble

YOU Under the Rubble

       "Look at this!" Who isn't excited when, digging through things at a second hand shop or a yard sale we find a treasure---something we've longed to find? We all love treasures, especially when they're found in unexpected places.

       If we look through the yard sale that is our life we start to realize that those randomly placed circumstances have been carefully hiding a treasure that is your life!

       "Why me!"  Oh, who hasn't said that when disaster strikes? The pat statement now is, "Why not me?" But really, do we really feel terrific that we were the one selected for the tornado to hit or the dryer to break or the, God forbid, middle of the night phone call?

       If we really look at our lives---REALLY look, we'll see that the character traits that matter most, that pull us through, that minister to others, that inspire others to keep going were developed under heaps of pain, heaps of rubble. The dictionary defines rubble as coming from the word rubbish and it originally meant broken bits of stone.

       Stone. Does your heart feel like stone when disaster strikes? I can still feel that ice that seemed to run through my veins at sudden shocking news. The thesaurus gives synonyms for rubble:  debris, ruins, and wreckage. RUBBLE. It's over. It's finished.

      

       In 1956 Nate Saint, Jim Elliott and three other American missionaries when to Ecuador to bring the gospel to the Auka Indians. There were the wives at the mission station when the word came; the Indians had killed their husbands. The missionaries had desired to develop friendships with the violent tribesmen and were killed shortly after their mission had begun. Can you imagine? All the men were slaughtered and here were the wives in a country where they were hated. The End of the Spear  and Through Gates of Splendor  are movies about the surprise ending; the jewel beneath the rubble. Rather than ending in bitterness the rubble has become an inspiring story of true love. Two of the wives ended up going back  to live among the savages several and won the tribe to Christ. Five generations of slaughtering even each other ended when the love of Christ swept over the men. One woman stayed with her children two years, but the other lived there the rest of her life there.

       I have read that occasional  failure leads to resiliency. The person who has many opportunities to stumble and get up seems to be more  resilient than the one who has had smooth sailing. Consider Job. Job 29 sees him was remembering the past. There was no sign of wreckage in his life and no hint that any was coming. He  had never suffered and triumphed over adversity. He did not have the opportunity to learn that when we're beneath the rubble God is there as the Master of the Search Team, the Excavator who can search beneath the rubble and lift us up. Who didn't cheer in the recent Haiti earthquake when on day 2, day 3, 4,5,6,7,8 a survivor was found and brought out alive?  God will always bring us out alive--because even when we are absent from the body we are present with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:8) Job 29:2--just because Job didn't sense God's presence doesn't mean He wasn't watching over him. To this point Job had judged God's presence and blessing by the circumstances in his life that were favorable.  But the fact is: difficult circumstances may very well be part of that training in that season of our lives. The woman who is pregnant one minute is just as pregnant as she is in the 9th month. But in that first minute, hour, week the work is done in secret. Oh! A great work of God is done in secret beneath those pebbles, stones, rocks and boulders that make up the rubble of our lives.

       In Job 29:4 Job spoke of those times of victory, respect and adulation as being in his prime. But, oh! if we could only begin to see that we are always in our prime! God's eyes are always on us! (2 Chronicles 7:16.) His eyes and heart are fixed on us perpetually! 2 Chronicles 16:9 says that God's eyes are on us when we are perfect. That does not mean that we dot every i and cross every t. It means that we are continually acknowledging God as the  one that can help us. We cry out to God and His help comes. God LOVES showing Himself strong to the one who knows he is weak without Him. God looks for us in that rubble and He doesn't have to depend on luck, or dogs, or any special instrument. There is nothing that can block God's eye from seeing you and loving you. As we continue to read Job 29 we see that he was a man of excellent deeds and character. (12) He considered and did something about poverty. (17) He fought cruelty of those who oppressed the poor and needy. But (16) He thought things would always go this way. He thought he would be honored and revered all his days.( 21) No one would dare interrupt him.( 22) He always had the last word. 24 When he encouraged someone he made that person feel that she could walk on air. His smile lit up anyone's life that it landed on. (25) He helped people make crucial decisions in their lives.

       But then came the day--the very first day of adversity for Job when EVERYTHING came crashing down around him. He was at the bottom of a heap of rubble. He lost his family, his finances, and his reputation in a day. His friends could not see Job--the child of God, the apple of God's eye. They saw the rubble.

       What is our rubble? What is your rubble? Are you buried under the pain of grief?  anxiety at work, infidelity of a spouse?  rebellion of children? What is your rubble? What makes up those pebbles, stones, and boulders that are burying you? They may be burying you from eyes of so-called friends who think they're better than you are. They may be burying you from your family who sees you as the black sheep, the odd-ball. They may even be burying you from yourself. But they don't bury you from the eyes of God. God's grace will go down the tiniest hair fracture and will smash the strongest blockage. He will lift you out.

       What of our heart? Can our heart TRULY cry out to God for help and  also hold resentment, jealousy, hatred? We are limited. God is unlimited. He can hold every person in the earth in His hand and heart. But we are limited. I cannot hold unforgiveness and the love of God in my hand at the same time. In fact Mark 11:25 tells us that when we pray we have to forgive every single person against whom we have any grievance in order for God to forgive us. 1 Peter 3:7 tells men that they need to honor their wives or their prayers will be hindered. They must see them as equals in partnership and treat them with respect. Does it say their prayers will go unanswered? No. It says their prayers will be hindered. Holding anyone in disdain creates a hindrance between--not us and God--but us and that desired answer to a prayer.

       God is sovereign. What does that mean? It means He-- not some test score, not some human relations evaluation, not the scale, not a diagnosis-- will determine the end and scope of your life. The second scripture I ever memorized--and I don't even remember the version or the book and verse---but I remember the concept; (you see it doesn't matter if we can recite the Bible. It matters how much of it we believe.) The scripture concept was, "Nothing can thwart God's plan for my life." He holds the keys to the outcome. That was the second scripture I ever memorized. The first was "I am safe as if I were in God's pocket, and my enemies fall like stones from a sling." Both of those concepts are concepts of God's sovereignty. You cannot determine if I succeed or fail. That is entirely in God's hands...and His hands LOVE me.

       Psalm 13 is the heart cry of the man or woman under the rubble. Maybe it is  your heart cry. What was the psalmist's comfort? His comfort was in remembering the steadfast love that he had EXPERIENCED before this time of trial. Because he had experienced it before, the psalmist could say with great conviction, "My God DEALS (present tense) bountifully with me."

       Dear one, our consciously remembering times that God showed His lovingkindness toward us in the past will give us the ability to say today, beneath the rubble of our lives, rubble so thick and hard, rubble that hides all light, rubble that is suffocating--it will give us the ability to say, "My Father will find me here and bring me out." The truth is, His eyes never left us. God never left YOU under the rubble.