Wednesday, March 19
Read: Psalm 105:1-42; 2 Chronicles 20:1-22; Luke 13:22-31
When have you found yourself facing a tough challenge, one you didn’t think you’d be able to overcome? Were you able to succeed? Did you figure it out yourself or with help?
After my senior season playing football at Huntingdon College, I had to have shoulder and knee surgery… at the same time. You want to talk about a challenge (though I’m sure my wife had the bigger challenge taking care of me for two weeks until I recovered enough to function on my own). It’s a common theme in scripture, allowing us to remember – sometimes painfully or reluctantly – our reliance on God and his divine mercy and grace.
Psalm 105 recounts almost all of the books of Genesis and Exodus, telling the story of how the Israelites faced seemingly insurmountable odds on the journey to becoming a nation. 2 Chronicles 20 shows us that same nation crippled by fear before facing a vast army mobilized against them. We see a king and a people terrified, begging God to save them from their foe. The end of Luke 13 shows us our own present battle: a most formidable enemy called death, waiting to take us to a place of loneliness and despair. This enemy is relentless, crouching at our doorstep, ready to pounce on us the moment we slip up.
These scriptures seem to be about different things. However, upon further examination, we can see there is one common thread between all of them: God’s deliverance. When I think of deliverance, I think of things like packages I’ve been waiting on for forever (okay, maybe like a week), or a big barbecue chicken pizza being brought to my door. It is the displacement of something from where it was – or may currently be – to where it needs to be, where it belongs. When I purchase strings for my guitar, they no longer belong at the store. Rather, they belong on my guitar. When I purchase a pizza, that pizza no longer belongs at the pizzeria, but in my stomach. There’s an important part about deliverance I’ve been purposefully leaving out, though, possibly the most important part: we don’t have to do anything. The goods, mail, or service is brought to us, right to our front door. We don’t even have to pick our feet up off the coffee table.
God delivered the Israelites from destruction at the hands of many kinds of enemies many different times. He delivered Abraham, Jacob, Isaac and Joseph. He delivered his entire people from Egypt through Moses. Friends, God has delivered us from sin and hell and death. He is the cosmic mailman. We were lost, broken, going nowhere fast. Fortunately for us, God knows we belong with Him, and He sent His Son to deliver us to Him. We were in God’s Amazon cart before the world even began, and Jesus came and died in our place to put us on His Prime membership, to reconcile (or deliver) us to the Father. He took us from where we were, and placed us where we belong, right in the arms of our Creator. From then on, it was a done deal. Signed, sealed, delivered, to echo the words of Stevie Wonder.
Prayer:
God, we face a great and powerful enemy, far more powerful than us. You knew that, so you stepped in and rescued us from its hands. As we have our groceries or packages delivered to us, remind us about how you delivered us from the grave. Let us live our lives knowing we’ve been bought at a high price, which means the One who purchased us must know us to be that valuable. In your redeeming name, amen.
Mr. Conner Bradford ’24 teaches Mathematics and coaches at Billingsley High School. He also serves as youth pastor at Bethsalem Baptist Church.
