The Lord had already declared the world’s destruction when he instructed Noah to begin building the Ark. The patriarch and his family were shut inside the vessel just one week before every other living creature which dwelt on the land died. They didn’t even have time for a training voyage or to perform buoyancy tests. To call this cutting it close would be an understatement, but actually, Noah was given more of a cushion than many of the saints whom the Lord rescued throughout redemptive history.
Angels grabbed Lot by the hand and literally dragged him from the city of Sodom as fire began to fall from the sky. Joseph was already in the pit and his brothers were preparing to murder him when a band of traders just happened to pass by. The Egyptian army was already within striking distance when the children of Israel found themselves trapped by the sea, and only a pillar of divine fire prevented Israel’s slaughter before the Lord miraculously parted the waters and led his people through on dry land. Manna fell every morning for six days, but except for the sixth no one was able to gather more than one day’s worth. There was no taking a day off from gathering food every morning. The cupboards were bare. A decision to sleep in rather than going out to gather manna was a decision to fast for the rest of the day. How many more stories could we name? Time would fail us if we recited the wilderness battle against Amalek which appeared to depend on Moses’ deltoids, or the experience of Joshua and Israel at Jericho, or multiple stories from the time of the judges, such as Samson who won his greatest victory at the moment of his defeat, or David’s near death experiences on countless occasions, when there was no more than a step (or a slung stone) between him and certain death, or the experiences of the prophets who suffered, fasted, and struggled mightily before seeing God’s hand of blessing. We could speak of Jesus and the apostles or the numberless stories of saints in Church history who were at the very precipice of disaster when God’s blessing appeared. Some of them did not survive the crisis, but their experience became the occasion for some of God’s greatest acts of kindness, revival, and redemption to be seen.
What should we think when circumstances in our lives, our families, the visible Church, or the broader world seem on the verge of disaster? Should we reassure ourselves that everything will work out fine? Tell that to Samson as the stones of the Philistine temple fell on his head, crushing his skull, and ushering him into the spirit realm. Should we imagine that nothing bad will ever happen? Explain that to the martyrs who were tortured and killed for their faith in Christ. Explain it to faithful parents who watched their children die of the plague or to believing parents today who have held their children after the last breath left their bodies. Let’s not be so foolish as to think the health and prosperity heresy has any credibility at all. If what those snake oil salesmen are peddling is Christianity, then we are all going to Hell.
What we can know, what we must remember, is that God loves to provide for his people when they are poised on the precipice. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Not “give us this first day of the month everything we will need until the next paycheck.” God does not make support payments once a month or every two weeks; he cuts support checks every day, usually sometime after you realize you don’t have enough, cannot tough it out, and probably won’t survive. That is when he shows up. That is when redemption and revival and reformation happen: when the King is already dead, his body wrapped in linen and laid in a tomb, and a large stone set against the opening and sealed so that no one can open it. No one can open the door to God’s blessing from the outside. Jesus opens the door to the glories of grace from inside the tomb. He did not save us from dying. He saved us by defeating death from within it. Things don’t get better until they are really, catastrophically, “only God can fix this and even that seems like a stretch,” bad. That is when he shows up, when we know we cannot save ourselves. When we know it was not our brilliance, our strength, or our three hundred warriors. It was the Lord. It could only be him. Father, give us today what we need for today, and help us to trust you for whatever we may face tomorrow. --JME
