Mayday

Of course, there are some things we learn by our own trial and error. The computer, for instance, isn’t going to blow up, lose all my precious data... if I touch it. The younger generation is uninhibited, plays around and the system suffers no ill effects at all - and they learn much faster than us "oldies"!

But it isn’t always appropriate or safe to learn that way. We want our children to grasp the meaning of "hot" without scalding themselves. We recognise that our youth may face painful lifetime consequences for free choices made without guidance of any moral foundation.

I have just finished reading a booklet by John Blanchard entitled, Where was God on September 11? (Evangelical Press, 2002) He quotes a survivor of the Holocaust - "It never occurred to me to associate the calamity we were experiencing with God - to blame him or believe in him less, or cease believing in him at all because he didn’t come to our aid. God doesn’t owe us that, or anything. We owe our lives to him. If someone believes that God is responsible for the death of six million because he doesn’t somehow do something to save them, he’s got his thinking reversed."

Blanchard also refers to an article in The Times that asked "What’s wrong with the world?" In the correspondence that followed, author G.K. Chesterton wrote, "In response to your question, ‘What’s wrong with the world?’ - I am."

Too often we expect God to answer our emergency - even if we ignore him for the rest of the time!

In Psalm 17 David is in trouble again - "the wicked... assail me... my mortal enemies... surround me. They have have tracked me down, they now surround me, with eyes alert to throw me to the ground. They are like a lion hungry for prey, like a great lion crouching in cover" (vv. 9, 11-12).

He feels cornered - nowhere to move, no safe place to go. Most people manage to call out to God in that sort of situation even if they forget him for the rest of the time!

But David wasn’t like that. He maintained his relationship with the Lord. He examines his heart and his motives. His "righteous plea" comes from one who seeks to base his life on God’s truth - "it does not rise from deceitful lips" (v. 1b). He opens his inner thoughts and motives to God’s examination and testing, confident that he has been following God’s way in both word and action.

On that basis he calls out to God, confident that his prayer will be both heard and answered (v. 6).

As we read the life story of David, of course, we know that the "righteousness" to which he refers in v. 15 isn’t based on having never slipped and fallen. It is the grace of God that forgives, cleanses, renews and restores - that makes us "right with God," that makes it possible for us to know God face to face.

Calling on God - we shouldn’t wait until we are desperate! In Revelation 3.20 we hear the Lord Jesus himself, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me."

The one who knocks gave his life to restore us into a right relation with our heavenly Father. In the righteousness he offers, we will indeed "see his face."

Prayer: Dear Lord, you know the life situations that cause us to give you an emergency call. You gave your life so our life could be straightened out. Probe our heart, we pray. Examine the sincerity of our faith and actions. Teach us to live, forgiven and transformed, that we may know you and make you known. Grant us the faith to come to you with grateful praise in all the good times so that we will be assured of your good will when we call out to you in time of trial. We ask this in the name of Jesus, Amen.

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