Out Of The Debris

Monday, 10 Feb 2003

As I sat in my bed this morning having my quiet time, I glanced up at the bookshelf not too far away. I read the words once again in the title of Catherine Marshall's book. In large print on the binding it says, "To Live Again." It is such a perfect title to a book. It is such a perfect way of saying so simply what lies between the covers of that book. The pages and pages she wrote about her life and the loss of her husband. It is such an inspiration to me, and when I think of the few precious things I will move into the RV with us, I will take that book because it will always be a reminder to me of the healing power of our Mighty Father, and that I truly can live again!
Fully, completely, and joyfully!

Thinking about that this morning, it reminded me of the debris of the World Trade Center buildings. In this world, they stood tall and proud and so strong. It seemed that nothing could ever destroy them. They had been "tested" for their strength, and they were safe by the world's standards. And yet, they came tumbling down within minutes, ending up in a pile of rubble, burying so many people underneath. For days, weeks and months the digging went on, clearing out the destruction, looking for survivors, hoping beyond hope that someone would be alive and would be rescued before it was too late.
How many days would that be?
What kind of miracles would we see?
Who would be spared out the countless pictures of missing persons that appeared all over the city? Families looking for loved ones.

As the days wore on, the rescue efforts continued at full strength, but the lives that were dug out were so few. Most had succumbed to the mass destruction of that day in September. Most never saw daylight again. Most left this earth for their final destination, totally unaware when they went to work that morning that they would not be returning to their earthly homes.

Perhaps we think we cannot relate to them.
Perhaps we are saddened at the loss of life, but go on about our business as usual.
Perhaps we are unaware of how this even relates to us, to our lives, to our futures.

But as I looked at that title this morning, "To Live Again," I thought about those people, and I thought about my own life, and I realized how much my life is similar to that event even though I never even visited the WTC or knew any of these people personally.

I thought of how one day I was in an earthly building, and I was hit broadside. As the fire raged, the walls of my life began to tumble into a pile of debris as high as the tallest skyscraper. I was buried alive, unable to take a deep breath for the amount of destruction that settled on top of me. The light that once surrounded me was suddenly turned into such darkness and the beating of my heart became painful from the crushing circumstances around me. Many others were outside, witnessing the tragedy, wanting to help, wanting to dig me out, but unable to offer the help that only God alone could provide. I was alone in the darkness as the dirt of the world stung my eyes, and the smell of death surrounded me.

Months and months of digging went on around me, cards and letters and phone calls and hugs and prayers were being used to dig, dig, dig around the life that had come crashing down. Some "worked" frantically wanting to help in any way they could, not knowing exactly where to dig, or what would help most, but so wanting to help. I could hear the efforts, I could feel the shift of the debris, and I could see shafts of light through the darkness, but still I could not move. I could not be free of the crushing weight, and I knew that if I was to be rescued, I needed to be still, to wait, and to trust in the help that was there for me, no matter how long it took. And I needed to pray! Pray with all my might, day and night, night and day.
I needed to reach out to the Great Rescuer to save me!

I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law,
but I trust Christ to save me.
Philippians 3:9
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I knew that if I was ever to see daylight again, I needed to trust in the Only One who knew exactly where I was each moment of each day, the One who saw each tear, who felt each ache of my beating heart, and who was the air I needed to keep breathing under the crushing weight of despair.

I knew that this world, and all its efforts, and all its machinery and good-will was helpful, but that there was only one way to truly live again, and that was to not put my confidence in human effort. Mine or anybody else's.

We put no confidence in human effort. Instead, we boast about
what Christ Jesus has done for us.
Philippians 3:3
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the year went on and the "digging" out continued, I realized that I could remain a prisoner in the destruction that happened on that day in November when my son left for heaven, or I could let my Savior dig me out and set me free. It was a choice that only I could make. No one else could convince me of it, no one else could decide for me, and no one but my Mighty God could pull me back out into the sunlight and set me on solid ground again. It was a private journey through Hell, so to speak, that could either destroy my life, or transform me into the person that Jesus Christ "saved me for and wants me to be." (Philippians 3:12)

Jesus Christ was buried too. He was not buried alive, but He as buried after He died. He was buried in a tomb and a large rock was rolled in place to seal His "fate." To the world, He was dead and gone. Never to be heard from again. The world had crushed Him, crucified Him, destroyed His life and His life's work on the cross that day....but three days later, the stone was rolled away and Jesus was raised again. He appeared to many on this earth, finally ascending back into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father.

What seemed to the world an ending, was really the beginning of all things good. It was the hope that the world searches for, the peace that the world craves, and the love that was shown to all of us that is beyond anything this world can offer to us. All we have to do is believe it, believe in the One who saves, and trust in Him.

Pretty crazy idea, huh? It was thousands of years ago, what does that have to do with us? Why should we believe in what we do not see? Why should we believe the Scriptures that were written way before our time, about the stories that they recorded way back then? How can that possibly apply to this modern world we live in? How could they know what we are going through today, the stresses we deal with, the economy, the world's issues that loom so large? They just couldn't know what it's like for us...

You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God in
a dark world full of crooked and perverse people.
Philippians 2:15
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. Their future is eternal destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and all they think about is this life here on earth.
Philippians 3:18-19
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know, I think those verses could have been written today. They certainly seem to apply to the same world we live in today. Have people really changed all that much? We move faster perhaps, we travel farther, we deal in larger amounts, but the human heart has not changed all that much. We laugh, we sing, we cry, we hurt, we love, we bond, we argue, we fight, we need, we want, we give, we receive. We love our children, our spouses, our families, we create friendships that last a lifetime, and we search for what it all means. Just as Paul did in Philippians. Just as the disciples did, just as the people around them did. They were all searching for answers, all wanting to learn a better way because the way they had found left them wanting, left them empty, left them a bit confused.

Perhaps it left them in a pile of destruction because the very lives we are called to live can bring on that destruction. It can bury us alive, leave us in the darkness under the weight of all that life has handed us, but that is not what God designed. He designed a life for us full of joy, and hope and a yearning for better things. A life that is lived each day wanting what He has for us, and not for what the world can offer us. What the world offers us can be destroyed in a moment's time. What God offers us can never be destroyed. It is everlasting. It cannot be wiped out by terrorists, or even by death itself. It is eternal!

Paul says:

No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.
Philippians 3:13-14
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The prize is not here on earth.
The "race" is here, but the prize is in heaven and we are already citizens of heaven.

But whatever happens to me, you must live in a manner worthy
of the Good News about Christ, as citizens of heaven.
Phil. 1:27

But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives.
Phil. 3:20
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This life is a journey that we are on while we are away from "home." If it feels foreign to us, if it feels like we don't belong, it is not our imaginations. It is the truth. God is calling us to live this life fully, and "strain to reach the end of the race" where He is waiting to welcome us home. If we get tired, and sweaty and thirsty and cramped up, it is because races take a lot out of us. They require our full effort, they call us above and beyond what we would normally do in our day, and they focus our attention on a greater goal. That is the Christian walk. That is what it is all about. It is focusing our attention on more than what this world shows us. It is focusing our attention on the race that God has called us to and to run that race for Him, following Jesus Christ to the finish line.

Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you.
Phil. 4:8-9
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you were buried in a pile of rubble and there was no light, no sound, barely any air to breathe, what would you fix your thoughts on to keep the panic from rising to an unbearable level?

If you are living in a world that can be dark, that can crush you with the weight of it, that has burdens beyond what you can bear, what will you fix your thoughts on to keep the panic from rising to an unbearable level?

Do you think you've never been buried in debris as large as the WTC? Think again! Think about your everyday and the heavy load that it carries! We get used to the pressure, we get used to the fight, and we try to go it on our own, when God simply asks us to focus on Him, fix our thoughts on Him, and keep putting into practice all we have learned from Him. Then peace will be with us. Even in the darkness. Even in the rubble of the aftermath of destruction. No matter how large, He will dig us out, and lead us home, every single day we live.

"To Live Again" is exactly that. It may be only possible to fully understand when we have suffered as Christ has suffered. When we have felt his pain. When we share in His death. When we have felt and experienced the resurrection from the dead, while we are still living. To feel His hand pull us to safety. To know that He alone can save us, and that He will.

For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. As a result, I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I can learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that somehow, I can experience the resurrection from the dead!
Phil. 3:9-11
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do we need to experience what is most painful to fully live? I'm not sure, but maybe that is the way God works. Maybe that is why we are called to suffer in this life? So that we can fully understand how Christ suffered for us, willingly. So that we can understand a portion of what He went through for us, and we can experience the power that raised Him from the dead when we are raised out of a "deathly state" because our emotions have been taken us to a place that feels like we have died, although we still live and breathe.

As Jim and I sat watching the service for the Space Shuttle crew, and we witnessed the families sitting there with President Bush, we would see from time to time that the emotions would well up in them and pour out in a flood of tears, then subsiding, only to come back again as they sat there. Jim and I talked about how we understood those feelings now and Jim said, "We don't even have to imagine them." How true that is. It was not something we had to drum up in ourselves to put ourselves in their place and wonder what they must be feeling. We felt it, it was very real to us, and we knew that they were on a long journey out of the "rubble." A journey they could not even fathom yet. We knew, but we also knew that if they were willing to be still, to wait on God, to allow Him to heal their hurting hearts, that He would, He could, and He very much wanted to. In doing so, they would experience what Paul talks about in Philippians, they would experience God's mighty power in a way that they perhaps never have before, and it is an awesome experience.

Many of you know the story of Job. For many years I have known about Job and his sufferings and his losses and as I read his story in the past, I questioned a part of it. I wondered how it could really help when God replaced all the things that He had lost with more than he had before. I could see giving him more possessions and all, but I thought to myself, what about his children? Even if God gave him twice as many children, they would never replace the ones he had lost. How could that possibly be the answer? It wasn't the answer really, because of course no child can be replaced by another. The love we have for one child is completely different and unique compared to the love we have for another. But what I have found is that God's ways are so different than our ways. Yes, He tells us that but it is hard to comprehend because we are stuck in these bodies, and in the way we think as human beings and until God demonstrates certain things in our lives, we simply cannot imagine how He will do it!!

Don't worry about anything, instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God's peace which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
Phil. 4:6-7
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By me trying to tell you in words what God has done in my heart this past year, it is like trying to explain what Paul could not even explain in the Bible. He says it is "more wonderful than the human mind can understand." If we can't really understand it, how can we possibly explain it? It is a peace that simply is, that simply has to be experienced, and that can only be found by complete trust with a childlike faith in Jesus Christ. When we can't figure it out, we just accept it. When we don't understand it, we simply receive it. And when we have questions about it, we leave them with the One we trust, and we know that He knows what is best for us.

A childlike faith? Certainly! How else can we live with something we can never understand, all the while receiving and enjoying it as it makes us whole again?

A childlike faith? How else can we understand that our child will be gone from us for the rest of our days on this earth but God is bigger and more wonderful than even that, and He will make it possible for us to go forward in our lives, blessing us in the most awesome ways? Never replacing our child, but bringing us a new joy we could never have imagined was possible.

A childlike faith? A resounding yes, because children have the security of knowing they are taken care of, they are loved, they don't need to know because their parents know, and they live in a blissful state of laughter and fun. The tears come, but they quickly pass with a hug and a "it's going to be okay", as they run along to the next thing they find in their path.

We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard that you trust in Christ Jesus and that you love all of God's people. You do this because you are looking forward to the joys of heaven - as you have been ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
Colossians 1:3-4
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do you think Jesus walked this earth betrayed by friends, criticized by religious leaders, persecuted, not respected, spit upon, tempted by Satan, pulled in every directions by the crowds who swarmed for his attention, rejected by many, told to leave, and eventually crucified after all He had done for so many? How do you think He could stand such abuse with such a difficult path in life, besides the fact that He is the Son of God, being God Himself? Because He knew the path back home, He knew the joys of heaven, He knew this was not all there was, and this "trouble" was very fleeting. He came, He had a job to do, He did it, and He returned home. It was merely the blink of an eye in heaven.

We won't "return home", because we have not been there yet, but we will be travelling home when we leave here if we are following after Jesus Christ. Just by knowing that, we can look forward to a better day. Psalm 84:10 says, "A single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else!" After one day "home" with Jesus, all that has transpired here will dim in comparison to what lies ahead. It will be beyond anything we could have ever imagined, and it will have all been worth it.

The enemy's time is short. The time for his destruction is coming to an end. It may not be in our lifetime, but it will come, and when it does, he will no longer be able to bury us under the weight of this world. He will no longer be able to turn our lives into a pile of debris that we get buried under. He will lose this battle, and we will be victorious in Christ forevermore.

The greatest secret that the enemy doesn't want us to know is that he has already lost. We don't have to be buried under the debris. We have already been set free!! All we have to do is accept the gift that has been offered to us. To not miss out on God's helping hand that reaches out to us. He can pull us to safety any day, any time. He knows exactly where we are buried, and He wants to help us out of there!! Isn't that great?!!

We also pray that you will be strengthened with his glorious power so that you will have all the patience and endurance you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father, who has enabled you to share the inheritance that belongs to God's holy people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the one who rules in the kingdom of darkness, and he has brought us into the Kingdom of his dear Son. God has purchased our freedom with his blood and has forgiven all our sins.
Colossians 1:11-14
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

God purchased our rescue. He paid for it with His Son.

If someone buried in the WTC could have purchased their freedom or if their loved ones could have purchased the "map" to where they were buried, and could have them dug out, they would have paid any price! No questions asked!

That is what has been done for us! In the rubble of our lives, God knows. He has already rescued us from the enemy, the one who rules in the kingdom of darkness. The enemy who causes the rubble, wants to keep you with him. He is doomed forever when Jesus Christ returns, but we don't have to be doomed along with him. We are free already! We are forgiven! We are children of God when we are adopted into His family of faithful believers.

God rescued me, and continues to do so. I have been brought back out into the sunlight after my world collapsed on me, leaving me buried deep in my mourning and grief. The crushing blows were more than a human body could withstand. The emotions that ran through my mind during my time of being buried under the "debris" could have destroyed me forever. I could have "died" under the weight of it all, emotionally. It was beyond anything I could have ever imagined in my life, just as the city of New York never could have imagined anything destroying the WTC buildings within minutes.

Life is like that, but the way we view it can change dramatically when we are in the darkness. It can change our focus and show us what's really important in this life because we will be looking desperately for the light that will lead us to freedom.

I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
Phil. 3:7-8
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Words written 2,000 years ago by Paul. A man I have never met, living in a world far different than the world I live in today, but still his words ring so very true. They have not changed, their meaning has not changed, and the Savior he believed in will never change. Jesus is our Rescuer in all of life's troubles. He is our joy, and He is our hope!

Reach up out of the rubble and let Him grab hold of your hand. You will never be disappointed as He leads you through this life and ultimately to your eternal home in heaven. He has done a mighty work in my life, and I know He will continue to do so. The things I once thought were important do seem worthless compared to what Christ has done.

The mighty power that raised Christ from the dead is the same mighty power that can see us through any circumstance we face in this life.

For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.
Phil. 4:13
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Living in His peace,
Diane