Finding
God in the Darkness
13
Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble;
He saved them out of their
distresses.
14 He brought them out of darkness and the
shadow of death,
And broke
their bands apart. (Psalm 107:13-14).
The morning sky had not yet begun
to pale in the east when the crew aboard the cargo ship noticed that there was
something dreadfully wrong aboard their vessel. Plumes of thick, acrid smoke were already pouring from one of the
passageways, driving the crew out onto the main deck. Luckily, the vessel was moored at the dock and a crewmember was
dispatched to the shore to notify the Port fire department. He found a payphone but then stopped, for he
was unaware of the simple 911 system that is common to the United States. He simply did not know what number to
call. What he did know was that the
fire station was located on the main road into the Port, nearly two miles from
where his ship was docked. He had no
car or other means of transportation, so he ran the entire distance.
Because of the delay, the fire
had been given plenty of time to intensify and to heat up by the time we
arrived on the scene. Luckily, it was
located amidships on the main deck and so had been unable to move into the
cargo holds or down into the engine room.
Nevertheless, it was a hot fire as our crews dragged their hoselines up
the gangway, across the deck and into the superstructure of the vessel. The fire had long since flashed over the
cabin where the fire originated and was now rolling across the
passageways. Not that we could see much
in the way of flames. The smoke was
thick and black and came all the way down to the floor.
The lead hose team only made it
partway to the fire when they ran short of air and called for a relief team to
follow the hose to the nozzle and take over.
I was on the relief team and checked in with the nozzleman, relieving
him on the nozzle amidst the clattering of alarm bells from low air packs. Our instructions were to standby until a
backup hose team caught up to us and so, we held place in the thick, black
smoke, using an occasional short burst of water to darken down the flames that
were rolling over our heads.
I felt a gloved hand on my
shoulder and heard the words, “I’ll be right back,” from my partner on the
hoseline and suddenly I was alone in the darkness. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen. Freelancing is forbidden in the fire service
and even back in those early days of my career it was not approved. I was a bit torn between obeying my orders
to remain in place versus doing the safe thing and pulling out. I decided to remain.
Every fire fighter who has been
on the job for any length of time has found himself in a situation where he is
down on his hands and knees in a place where he cannot see his hand in front of
his face. I knew that I could not
because I had checked. It is at a time
like this that a sense of introspection arises and one is faced with the
existential question: “What on earth am I doing here?”
You may be asking yourself the
same question. True, the darkness that
you are facing in your life is probably not literal, but you can nevertheless
empathize with that lonely feeling of abandonment and you long for the hand of
God upon your shoulder that whispers, “It’s okay, I am with you.”
Those were the words that Moses
heard. He had been alone for a very
long time. Wanted for the murder of an Egyptian taskmaster, he had
long since left the land of his birth to become a fugitive in a foreign
land. He had gone from a prince of
Egypt to a lowly shepherd. He had gone
from the glories of the land of the pyramids to what felt like the wasted life
of a desert nomad. There must have been
times when he asked the question, “What on earth am I doing here?”
One day, Moses happened upon an
unusual sight. It was a fire. At the source of the fire was a bush. He must have watched for a while, waiting
for the bush to be consumed by the fire.
Perhaps an hour passed and then another. The fire showed no signs of dying down. The bush showed no signs of burning. The leaves were still green and visible through the flames.
Suddenly there was a voice.
“Moses, Moses!”
What do you say to a talking
bush? I can’t think of a better reply
than the one Moses gives, “Here I
am!” What follows is a conversation,
not between a bush and a man, but between the God of all the universe and His
chosen servant.
To be sure, Moses isn’t sure that
he is up to the task, especially when he learns that it involves going back to
Egypt. Egypt? That is the one place on earth where he doesn’t want to go. It is the place of scandal. It is the place where he has been accused of
a heinous crime. Moses knows deep down
in his heart that the accusation is true.
It is bad enough to have people accuse you; it is even worse when you
know the accusation is true.
God sets forth the plan. Moses is to go to Egypt and he will be the
spokesman for God. The Lord will give
the message and Moses will proclaim it.
Moses must have wondered why he
was necessary to the plan. After all,
God could simply have spoken to Pharaoh and the people of Egypt from a burning
bush or from a storm cloud or from a pillar of fire. Why did Moses have to get involved? It is because God wanted to get personal.
The story is told of a little
girl who cried out to her mother from her bedroom, “Mommy, I’m afraid to be in
my dark room alone.” Her mother
replied, “It’s okay, Honey. The Lord is
with you.” She called back, “Yes, but I
want someone with skin on.”
Throughout the Old Testament, God
had manifested Himself in thunder and lightning, a cloud by day and a pillar of
fire by night. He had approached men
through a sacrificial system - by the blood of bulls and of goats. There was a mediator in the priesthood and a
holy place in the Temple - and before that, the Tabernacle.
But ultimately there was
something lacking in all of these manifestations. There was a desire to experience God “with skin on.” Jesus is God “with skin on.” And He has come so that we never have to be
afraid again.
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