Soul Snack 8/160 ... God's Pipe
Straining timbers creaked fearfully! Soaked sailors with wearied and tortured muscles slid mercilessly across the rolling deck. Foaming and furious waves provided endless battering. Sails torn, control lost. All efforts failed. Doom the only desire, death the only guarantee. 14 days of just 1 relentless storm, sufficient to rob the fittest, even the most arrogant, of any hope.
This Mediterranean nightmare is 2000 years old, however it still repeatedly occurs across countless lives each minute of each day.
When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved. Acts 27:20
Paradoxically hopelessness is so really good!
Hopelessness is good as it is the first sign that God is about to turn up!
Hopelessness means that I now put out the welcome mat for God. Personal dependence ceases, God dependence begins. Finally rescue becomes possible in the humility that only hopelessness breeds. Without hopelessness I can be no more than a cork in the storms of life, with little control yet still holding on to a failing ability to rescue myself.
....and said, 'Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand trial before Caesar; and God has graciously given you the lives of all who sail with you Acts 27:24
My hopelessness is God's heavenly pipe so that His grace is able to flow through it and into me. Grace received is salvation assured. My hopelessness is permission for God to bring His help to my life.