127 Sermon Illustrations on Deliverance

Blood pours from his chest and mouth. The AK-47 round ripped through him like hot, molten lead. His battle mate assesses the gaping holes with grim resignation: The jungle warrior faces certain death. As a backslidden Christian, he’s sure he will soon face a holy God and is overwhelmed with shame.

All the medivac choppers have left. There are no more coming. But through the fog of descending death, the stricken soldier sees two ethereal figures approaching –- one a little taller than the other. They seemed almost joined, side-to-side.

“Oh, no,” he thinks. “It’s the Father and the Son coming for me.”

“God help me. God help me. That’s all I could say,” said Bobby Welch, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the evening of Easter Sunday, 2005.

That Sunday night, however, Welch preached about himself, using the New Testament story of the prodigal son in relating his near-death ordeal in Vietnam and his eternal life encounter with Jesus Christ.

Welch explained he didn’t want to appear before God in his carnal condition, so he asked that God would clean him up, somehow, before he appeared before his Savior.

“So I muttered only those six words. I said it twice, ‘God help me. God help me,’” Welch recounted.

Now a huge spotlight dances on the ground around the bleeding soldier. The elephant grass reciprocates in the whirl of a landing helicopter -– a chopper that appeared unexpectedly. Welch’s rescuers throw him atop three other dead men. One of the rescuers says, “He’ll die before we get there.” Obviously, he didn’t.

For about seven days, Welch doesn’t remember exactly, he could move no body part while recuperating except for his eyeballs. But after about a week, Welch asked his nurse for some water and his Bible.

Welch sipped the water, wrapped his hands around a camo-green New Testament and promised God, “‘The next time you come for me, I’ll be ready. You’ll never, ever again find me far from you.’”

Welch recounted his boyhood, teen and college days, none of which honored God. At least not until he met Maudellen, his wife, when the two were young teens.

“Now some would say that was puppy love. But that’s pretty important if you’re a puppy,” Welch said.

Welch described standing outside of the church with the smokers and then noticing that the lights in the auditorium went out. “You know what they were doing in there –- but I didn’t. So, I ventured in one night to see a baptismal service,” he said of Maudellen’s home church.

With candid talk and humorous vignettes, Welch described his courtship of Maudellen and the way she pointed him to Christ.

Eventually convicted of his sin by the purity of Maudellen’s life, Welch went to visit her pastor. “I didn’t even know the right questions to ask, so here’s what I said -– and get this, this is precious –- I asked the pastor, ‘Is there any way my life could become like Maudellen’s?’”

The pastor then led Welch to Christ using a red Gideons’ New Testament.

Despite his conversion to Christ, Welch said he eased away from God while attending college. Welch completed the ROTC program and soon asked to be put on active duty. He was. And after training, he went to Vietnam to lead a reconnaissance patrol, leaving God far behind, or so he thought.

Volunteering for his assignment, as did 28 other men, Welch and the patrol he led were to extract about 130 other soldiers who had walked into a Viet Cong ambush point -– a large field dotted with seven hidden bunkers. The bunkers formed a sort of horseshoe shape, Welch said, and the soldiers walked smack into the middle of it. Many were dead or bleeding to death, and the rest would die unless Welch reached them.

Dividing his men into groups of four, Welch set the plan: Charge the bunkers and clear them out. And that’s what happened. After the successful campaign, Welch was shot by an enemy sniper, a “stay-behind soldier,” he said, describing the universal warfare tactic of leaving a few soldiers hidden for the express purpose of picking off enemy soldiers whose guard might be down after a skirmish.

That’s when it happened. “The bushes ahead of me exploded in a flash. The bullet hit me. My head flew back. My feet came off the ground. I spun 360 degrees and landed face down,” he said. “I laid there with my head on my left arm, watching this pool of blood on the ground getting bigger and bigger.”

Choking back the tears and across trembling lips, Welch said, referring to the prodigal son and himself in the same breath, “When he came to his senses, mercy came running.”

Welch appealed for any of his listeners who might be prodigals themselves to come to their senses and be embraced by the mercies of a loving heavenly Father.

Holiday Heights’ old-time prayer rail at the edge of the platform was soon full. And there was Welch, first kneeling and then on all fours, his tie dragging the carpet. He’d come full-circle as he prayed a life-saving prayer -- only the pronoun had changed: “God help us. God help us.” He said it twice.

Noah, his family, seven pairs of clean and one pair of unclean of every living creature enter the ark as God had commanded (Genesis 7:2,9,16); the great flood; the Rainbow Covenant

The LORD said to Noah Come, you and all your house into the ark (Genesis 7:1). Noah was able to save his family and preserve mankind because his faith in the spoken Word of God led him to build the ark. During the many years spent in constructing the ark, he was also known as a preacher of righteousness in an ungodly world (II Peter 2:5). This illustrates the New Testament truth that faith without works is dead (James 2:26). The ark was a secure refuge from certain death; it was also a type of Christ, who provides spiritual refuge for believers. Christ, our spiritual ark, is calling to the lost today: Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).

For Noah and his family, there came a day, prior to the flood, when they were told to enter the ark, and the LORD shut him in (Genesis 7:16). All who wait for a more convenient time to be saved need to realize that it is an insult to God who said now is the accepted time … now is the day of salvation (II Corinthians 6:2). Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it (Hebrews 4:1).

Just as Noah was able to rest within the ark, secure from the waters of death, so we can be assured of spiritual rest, for our lives are hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). As soon as he was once more on dry land, Noah built an altar to the LORD … and offered burned offerings on the altar (Genesis 8:20). The obedience of faith and the worship of God go hand in hand. Just as Noah was not given an exact day when the flood would come, neither do we know the day that we will face the Lord.

Of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels (messengers) of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew (understood) not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. … Therefore be … ready (Matthew 24:36-39,44).

Christ Revealed:

Through the ark (Genesis 7:1,7; Acts 4:12; I Peter 3:12,20). Christ is our ark of safety. Jesus, (who) delivered us from the wrath to come (I Thessalonians 1:10).

Word Studies:

7:3 keep seed alive = to preserve the species;

7:18 face = surface;

8:1 assuaged = subsided;

8:3 abated = diminished;

9:3 meat = food;

9:19 overspread = populated.

It was supposed to be a one-hour fishing trip off the coast of South Carolina. For 17-year-old Josh and his 15-year-old friend Troy, it turned out to be a six-day nightmare at sea. When they set out on their little 14-foot Sunfish, they didn't know about the small craft warnings in that area. Within hours, the fierce winds had pulled them out to sea - to a point 111 miles north - well outside of the Coast Guard's search area. They fought to stay alive by eating raw jellyfish and gargling sea water. They were severely sunburned, exhausted and dehydrated. After 48 hours, the Coast Guard announced they were suspending their search and moving from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. But there was this uncle who refused to concede the boys were dead. He's a police officer, and he thinks rescue. After studying the weather and the currents, he concluded that they might be as far as the area where they actually were found. He made sure that fishing vessels in the area were alerted to be looking for the boys. And as they were praying that God would either take them home or take them to heaven, some fishermen spotted them - and saved them.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You about “Love That Cannot Let You Go.”

That's what that uncle had. When everyone else had given up hope of saving those boys, he was looking for a way to do it. He was a rescuer who refused to give up, who would not quit.

You have someone who loves you like that; someone who has refused to give up on rescuing you. You say, “Do I need rescuing?” We all do. Because we are paying the price for all the times we've done things our way instead of God's way; all the times we've broken God's laws and pushed our Creator to the margins of our life. Isaiah 53:6, our word for today from the Word of God, describes our lostness this way: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray; each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). We're paying the price in guilt, and stress, and loneliness, and the bitter consequences of our selfish mistakes. Worse yet, that's only a taste of the ultimate price we'll pay for drifting so far from our home port.

If we don't get rescued, we'll end up separated from God and His love forever. That's the penalty for spiritual hijacking - taking over a life that God was supposed to direct. So whether or not you realize the spiritual danger you're in, your only hope is a rescuer. And there is one - only one. He doesn't want to leave you lost. So He found a way to bring you home, but it cost Him everything. Speaking of Jesus, that statement in Isaiah says, “The Lord has laid on Him the wrongdoing of us all.” For Jesus, the road to rescue you led to a cross. That's where He paid for your sin.

Jesus said He leaves the sheep that are already in to “go after the lost sheep.” That could be you today. He's come right to where you are to reach out His hand to you. When you grab His hand, when you grab Him as your only hope, you are rescued. You are headed for the home your heart has been missing your whole life. But you've got to be willing to leave the course that has been taking you away from God and to depend totally on Jesus to make you clean and take you to heaven someday. This could be the day of your rescue.

Jesus really, really loves you. He doesn't want to lose you. He went all the way to a cross to bring you home. And now He's reaching for you to rescue you. I pray you will grab His hand.

________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

*

When a Jew comes to believe in Jesus, it not only affects his life but the lives of those closest to him — his family. This was certainly the case when Steve Wertheim, the son of a Jewish immigrant, came to believe in Jesus.

Steve's father, Fred, was born in Germany in 1925. The son of a baker, he lived in a small village of 2,000 people. The town had very few Jews, ten families to be exact. Fred, as a young boy, had to look among the non-Jews for playmates because the only other Jewish children were his two older sisters and an older Jewish girl. It didn't bother him to have gentile friends, but it started bothering them to have a Jewish one.

By the time Fred was eight, the Aryan philosophy of Hitler was well on its way to acceptance by most Germans. Fred's best friends did not want to play with him anymore. His parents, who were prospering in the bakery business, held to the illusion that Hitler would lose his popularity and that things would get better once again for the Jews. Instead they got worse.

The Wertheim family finally decided to leave Germany for America. However, wanting to leave and getting out of the country were two different things. Because of immigration quotas, they needed to apply to the Consulate for clearance. The family had no papers prepared by a United States citizen for them, and that made emigration difficult. They were given a number — a very high one — 48,878, which represented the number of people allowed to come from Germany before them. It would be a while until they could expect to go.

Meanwhile, on July 2, 1938, Fred became bar mitzvah. He was to be the last Jewish boy to undergo the ceremony in his district. Four months later came Kristallnacht. His synagogue, along with hundreds of others, was destroyed. Six days later, it was ordered that Jewish children be expelled from the schools. At the same time, Jewish males that were thirteen or older were being conscripted for “labor camps.” Fred was small for his age and because of his size was overlooked. Before long, entire Jewish families were being deported to the death camps. Yet, for some mysterious reason, his family was spared. Their immigration number came up, and in May of 1941 the Wertheims left what had become Hitler's Germany. They traveled by way of France, Spain and Portugal and arrived on the shores of what they saw to be heaven on earth — America.

Fred learned the English language quickly and after having been in the States only two years, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. The eighteen-year-old went through basic training and was shipped out to England. He was then given additional training and assigned to the First Infantry Division as part of the combat engineers. This was a front-line unit that was trained to remove mines or build emergency bridges so others could advance. Front-line units like Fred's had dangerous duty and high casualties.

Fred took part in the invasion of Europe on D-Day. He fought his way through France and across the Rhine River, ironically, into his native Germany. Then Fred and some of his fellow Army soldiers were captured there. Says Fred,

“I remember they had us lined up. The Germans were talking among

themselves, loud enough for me to hear. Since I understood what

they were saying, my body started to shake. Some of my buddies

started asking me, 'What's happening? How come you're ready to

pass out?’ I told them, 'This is the way it's going to be. They

don't know what to do with us and so they're going to shoot us.’”

Yet, for some reason they changed their minds and took the group to a prisoner of war camp near Hanover — Stalag 11B. Fred was spared again.

Most of the prisoners at Stalag 11B had been there throughout most of the war and were very weak. Some couldn't even stand up. No work was assigned to the prisoners, for it would have probably killed most of them who were in a state of physical debilitation. Each morning, Fred and the others answered a roll call and then spent the rest of the day wandering within the boundaries of the high wire fences.

The conditions in the camp were not up to Geneva Convention standards. The clothes of the prisoners were burned regularly because they were lice-infested. Many had their hair shorn very short to minimize the infestation. Their breakfast and lunch was combined into one “meal” which consisted of a tin can filled with black coffee. In the late afternoon they were given a stew which contained vegetables and occasionally a few strings of horsemeat. Fred remembers, “It smelled so rotten that I literally held my nose while I was eating. Once in a while, very late at night, some Germans from outside the camp would throw food over the fence and run away.” It proved that not all Germans were Hitlerites.

Meanwhile, back in the States, Fred's family had gotten a telegram delivered by a woman dressed in black. It was from the War Department saying that Fred was missing in action. Germany didn't turn over names of prisoners, so his family had no way of knowing if he was alive.

Eventually the Allied Forces conquered Germany and General Montgomery's Ninth Division liberated Stalag 11B. Fred first had to recuperate from tapeworm and other maladies received as a result of his imprisonment. Then, around Mother's Day of 1945, he was sent home.

“The convoy I was in was the first batch of American POW's to get back to New York City and we got a tremendous welcome — fireboats and everything. The following Saturday I got a big reception in the synagogue from the rabbi and the entire congregation.”

Fred felt very grateful to be back in a safe place. He couldn't forget, however, the horrors of war or the miracle of his preservation. “God has done so many good things for me. He brought my immediate family out of Germany. He kept me alive in a prisoner of war camp. And there was the time that I was in a German halftrack that turned over on top of me. Two Germans lay dead next to me. The halftrack was so heavy with equipment that I couldn't move. Then water started to come up as we were pressed down in a field. I thought my life was over. I said the Sh'ma and I spoke to God pleading for His help. At that moment, several of my German captors were able to lift the halftrack and slide me out from under it. I was safe once again.”

“First I escaped from Hitler as a Jewish refugee. Then I was liberated as an American prisoner of war. But I was never free until Messiah saved and rescued me.”

Fred Wertheim believed in God and felt that God had preserved him for a purpose. He didn't know what it was, but reasoned that he should just go on living, that God would show him some day. Fred married a nice Jewish girl from his synagogue and he and Laura settled down in the Bronx. They raised two sons and things were going fine until he got a phone call from his oldest son Steve. Steve had moved to California after graduating from college. Fred could not believe his ears, but Steve's words were clear: “Dad, Mom, I've come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah.”

Fred took the news very hard: “After all I had been through, here I saw my own flesh and blood had turned against me.” Fred worked as a mail carrier, and for weeks after the phone call, he would just suddenly start crying on his route. People asked him what was wrong, but he couldn't tell them. He was ashamed to let them know that his son had become a Christian.

Steve tried to explain to his father that his decision to believe in Jesus was not intended to hurt Fred. It was a decision based on conviction — the conviction that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. Steve told his father about a Mr. Goldstein who had originally told him about Jesus. Mr. Goldstein was a Jew for Jesus who Steve had met and through whose Bible study meeting Steve became more and more convinced of his spiritual needs and of Jesus' sufficiency.

Fred, while depressed over Steve's decision, became angry with Mr. Goldstein. When Steve told him that Goldstein was coming to New York and wanted to visit with him, Fred agreed. He said to his son, “I want to meet the man who did this to you and I want to kill him. I'm going to throw him off of our terrace!”

Goldstein and his wife visited the Wertheims and instead of a violent or angry interchange, the two couples discussed things over coffee and a danish pastry ring.

Says Mrs. Wertheim, “We asked them many questions. After a while, Mr. Goldstein pointed out prophecies in the Jewish Bible. I was a little shocked to see that my husband was very curious to know more.”

Fred Wertheim's curiosity continued past that evening. He started attending Bible study meetings in New York:

“I became a very conscientious student. Each week we were asked

to prepare for the next lesson by reading a particular passage

from the Scriptures. One week the assignment was to read the

first letter of John (in the New Testament), but I read the

Gospel of John by mistake. I couldn't put it down. Then, on the

morning of September 29, 1975, I woke up at four o'clock. I saw

what was the outline of a figure standing in the doorway of my

bedroom. I couldn't see a face, but I knew it was Jesus. I was

convinced that he was real and that I wanted him in my life. I

knew he was my Messiah. For me to become a believer, it took a

supernatural event like this one. I know it's not that way for

everybody who believes in Jesus, but that's how it happened to

me. I didn't tell my wife until later in the day.”

Laura Wertheim was upset about the news. First her son and now her husband too! To compound things, their youngest son Robbie, announced that he too was a believer. He didn't want to say anything until his father came to believe because he was afraid that it would be too traumatic an experience for Fred. In Robbie's words, “I didn't think he could take another one.”

But could Laura Wertheim take another family member believing in Jesus? Says Mrs. Wertheim,

“I was very stubborn. While I felt surrounded by believers, I

kept reminding myself that so many people were killed in the

Holocaust. So many Jews were killed. I couldn't betray my

upbringing.”

Then the Wertheim family went to see a movie called “The Hiding Place.” Laura watched this true story about a Christian woman and her family in Holland during the war. Says Laura,

“It showed the suffering this woman went through, yet she kept

her faith in God. It made me see that God was working during the

Holocaust — through people like this dear woman. Because she

believed in Jesus, she helped Jews — she had real reason to hope.

I just sat there and wept and sobbed through the entire picture.”

The next week, she too accepted Jesus as her Messiah. Four years later, Fred and Laura Wertheim renewed their marriage vows. Portions of the ceremony follow:

“Love and commitment have come to have a diminished meaning in

today's world. Yet, we can see the true meaning of love and

commitment as we behold Fred and Laura Wertheim, a couple united

in God, showing forth His faithfulness. In a world where

promises are seldom kept and faithfulness is scorned, they stand

here to declare and reaffirm their love for one another.

“In Jewish tradition, it is considered a blessing and privilege

to be an invited guest at a wedding. To be able to rejoice with

a bridegroom and his bride as they begin a new life together is

something that brings joy to the heart. How much more, then, can

we rejoice with Fred and Laura as we witness the profession of

their continued love. Thirty years ago on the 22nd day of

October of 1949, Freed and Laura were joined under the chupah.

“Today, they reaffirm their vows in our presence. They

rededicate their lives to one another with a new dimension and

depth — that they are joined to God Almighty. He is the center

of their union with one another. Their children have always been

able to recognize the mutual devotion and deep respect that Fred

and Laura have had for each other throughout their marriage.

Yet, when the Wertheims met Jesus their Messiah, their

relationship truly blossomed. The faith that they came to four

years ago has made a good relationship far sweeter. Their

relationship with Jesus increased their capacity to love each

other in the everyday practicalities of their life together.

Their relationship with Jesus increased their capacity to love

others.

“Because God has been so faithful to them, they desire to

publicly declare and demonstrate that faithfulness and have come

today to dedicate their lives afresh in serving Him.

“Fred and Laura, God has given both of you much, and the

Scriptures say, 'From everyone who has been given much, much will

be demanded.’ However, when God gives us a responsibility, He

also promises to supply what we need to fulfill that which he

requires. We have the great promises of God to rely upon as we

live our lives in Messiah. 'Being confident of this, that he who

began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the

day of Messiah Jesus' (Philippians 1:6).

“...As they stand before you, the Wertheims wish to reaffirm

their commitment to one another in Jesus and their desire to

reflect God's image together.

Fred: 'As the days seemed short to Jacob in serving for Rachel,

so have the years seemed that we have shared. Laura, my wife, I

promise you, as a child of God, that I will continue to love and

respect you, honor and uphold you, and give of all that I have to

you. As we continue to walk together in the love of Messiah

Jesus, I pray that we will become a true reflection of the love

and faithfulness Jesus has for the Holy Congregation.'

Laura: 'Fred, throughout our marriage you have been both my

beloved and my friend, the one whom I can fully trust with all

that I am. As a child of God, I promise you, my husband, that I

will continue to love and respect you, honor and uphold you, and

give of all that I have to you. I will faithfully stand with you

and help inspire you, that God's will might be the focus of our

lives.'“

“May God's love surround you, Fred and Laura, as the mountains

surround Jerusalem; and may that love emanate forth to all who

you touch with your lives. May your next thirty years together

increase your joy and gladness as Messiah reigns in your lives.”

________

[This article originally appeared on September 1, 1983. Some information may be outdated.]

Copyright 2006 Jews for Jesus. All Rights Reserved

Behold, I give unto you power … over all the power of the enemy — Luke 10:19.

The last six months have, I think, been the very happiest of my life, though, I think I have never suffered more … I used at one time to be always wanting things for myself, not material things or necessarily in the least harmful things, but sympathy, appreciation, culture of talents, etc. Now I feel as if I wanted absolutely nothing, and suddenly I find myself rich in all that is worth having, and able to give … to all I meet who are in any need. I do not know that I can explain very clearly; it is simply like living in a new world. I do not fret any more over sleepless nights, and so they do not seem to harm me as they did. The power of Christ within can overcome even this engrained enemy of heredity, and I hardly now ever feel irritable, and never show it as I used to. (From a letter).

Things that once were wild alarms

do not now disturb my rest,

Closed in everlasting arms,

pillowed on His loving breast.

Oh, to live forever there,

doubt and care and self resign,

While He whispers In my ear-

I am His and He Is mine,

Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. — Isaiah 51:1.

It is a good thing for the Christian to make a periodic pilgrimage to the quarry of sin, where he was by nature, and remember that, but for the grace of God, he would still be there, lifeless and helpless and hopeless. As he peers into the cavernous depths of the “horrible pit” in which he lived in the past, and recalls the “miry clay” of sin into which he had sunk so deeply; it will cause him to think gratefully of the One who descended into that pit in order that He might place His everlasting arms around the sinner, and bring him out of that dreadful place. — A. P. Gibbs.

Sunk in ruin, sin and misery,

bound by Satan’s captive chain,

Guided by his artful treachery,

hurrying on to endless pain,

My Redeemer! Plucked me as a brand from hell.

Mendy Nantz was on the way to a funeral when it happened.

“Don’t scream or do anything stupid or I will kill you,” a well-dressed man commanded the 33-year-old Southern Baptist missionary.

Idling outside the Africa Inland Mission counseling center in Nairobi, Kenya, Nantz had spent the past few minutes honking the horn of her red Toyota RAV-4. She was waiting for someone to open the steel gate that protected the compound’s entrance. But instead of a friendly wave, Nantz was greeted by the barrel of a gun. She was being kidnapped.

As the man shoved her into the RAV’s passenger seat, she managed to hit the horn one last time.

“That was stupid,” he snarled, throwing the Toyota into reverse.

Immediately, Nantz began to pray.

“Lord, do not let that honk be in vain,” she cried out, silently.

Within seconds, the RAV’s back doors flew open and two more men jumped in, both carrying guns.

“I was trembling,” Nantz recalled. “I started thinking, ‘This is the end -- how do I want to end my life? Do I want to end my life praising God? Or do I want to end my life in fear?’

“I had guns on me all the time. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t scream for fear they would shoot, but I could pray,” she said.

As the SUV sped away from the compound, the gunmen demanded money and began to rifle through Nantz’s belongings. One of the men was ordered to get rid of more than a dozen blue balloons that filled the RAV’s backseat.

“Those were for my friend; he died and his funeral is today,” Nantz pleaded.

The man pushed the balloons out the window.

Minutes later, the Toyota pulled off the main road, and Nantz started to panic.

“I began to imagine all the horrific things these men could do to me,” she said. “I had nothing else to give them. I began to pray specifically, ‘Lord, You are my King and my God. You are in control of all situations. Please do not let them touch my body in any way.’”

Nantz considered what she would do if the men tried to rape her. She was ready to kill them -- or herself -- to prevent it.

“It was right then that an overwhelming peace came over my soul,” Nantz said. “Even though I think I know what I can and can’t live through, God knows better than I do.”

Abruptly the RAV came to a stop. Nantz knew they were near the Langata cemetery, an isolated area of Nairobi. If her kidnappers were going hurt her, it would be here. The Toyota’s doors opened, but no one got out. Seconds passed sluggishly, and the uncertainty was agonizing. What were her kidnappers waiting for? She continued to pray.

Suddenly the doors slammed shut, and the RAV rumbled to life. They were heading back to the main road.

“I really believe the Lord convicted their hearts of their wicked ways and spoke to them,” Nantz said. “I don’t know if it was a vision. I don’t know if it was angels. I don’t know if He spoke words to them that they heard. But it was the Lord.”

Her thoughts now turned to the prospect of escape.

“I knew the Lord was in control -- I just needed to be aware of when He was going to allow me an exit from the situation,” she said. “I’ve always heard that if you try to befriend them (kidnappers), they react more nicely to you.”

The gunman in the RAV’s backseat gave Nantz her first opportunity. Still rummaging through her things, he found a pack of gum.

“You can have it,” Nantz remembers telling him. “I want to give it to you as a gift.”

He smiled at her, quizzically.

“When he took all that stuff out of my bag, I decided, ‘I don’t want him to steal from me, so I’m just going to give it to him,’” Nantz said. “I just felt much better. Maybe it was more of a mental thing.”

She even felt confident enough to crack several jokes with her assailants, at one point asking if they were taking her to the beach, which was a seven-hour drive.

“They didn’t respond. I laughed though,” Nantz said.

But any rapport she managed to build was quickly shot down by what had become her kidnappers’ standard response: “Shut up, or we’ll kill you.”

Though her words didn’t seem to be making much of a difference, Nantz knew there was one that would. Remembering a devotional about the power of Jesus’ name, she began to whisper it aloud.

“I decided that if nothing else I could at least fill the entire RAV with the name of Jesus,” Nantz said. “I’m a believer that if you speak it out and you speak it boldly, His name is powerful enough to change any situation, any circumstance.... Because the enemy cannot stand the name of Jesus. He hates it.”

“We are Islam,” the driver responded.

Once again Nantz was overwhelmed with calmness. Noticing her Bible stuck between the seats, she grabbed it and held it tightly against her heart.

The RAV was now rolling down a long, dirt alley, heading toward a large, red gate. Another wave of fear began to grip her.

“Once I’m in there, I’m lost forever,” Nantz remembers thinking. “I thought this was the end of my life.”

Stopping short of the gate, the gunmen exited the Toyota and forced Nantz behind the wheel. All three guns were trained on her.

“Drive!” the group’s leader ordered.

This was her chance. The kidnappers were letting her go. And then something happened that Nantz said she will remember for the rest of her life.

Reaching out, the man gently touched his hand to the side of her head.

“Good job,” he said.

She punched the gas and the RAV shot down the road. She was safe, and for the first time during the terrifying 45-minute nightmare, tears streamed down her face.

Nantz said she has no idea what the kidnapper meant by his final words but believes God was speaking through him.

“I don’t know that he knows he even said it,” Nantz said. “I think it was the Lord’s words saying, ‘Good job, Mendy. You did what I wanted you to do. You praised Me through the whole situation. You trusted Me, and you allowed Me to work things according to My will.’ In my heart, that’s what I believe. Others may think I’m crazy.”

EVIDENCE OF GOD’S HAND

Months after her kidnapping, Nantz said it’s evident the Lord was at work throughout her ordeal, beginning the moment she was taken.

Remember that final, defiant honk she prayed wouldn’t be in vain? It wasn’t. A neighbor heard the RAV’s horn and came to the window just in time to see the gunmen jump in and speed away. The neighbor immediately informed Nantz’s friends, who put out the alert she had been kidnapped.

And the blue balloons the gunmen pushed out the window? They were seen floating through the air by an AIM AIR pilot returning from the Congo. Putting two and two together, Nantz’s friends used the balloons’ location over the city to direct a search plane to look for her red RAV-4.

But perhaps the most remarkable demonstration of God’s provision and protection that day was Nantz’s personal safety. She said it’s taught her the true power of prayer.

Within 10 minutes of the kidnapping, a prayer chain was mobilized. Literally hundreds of people, some scattered around the world, were on their knees, interceding on Nantz’s behalf. She credits those prayers for saving her life -- and her purity -- during those terrifying moments near the Langata cemetery.

“I believe that’s why I had the overwhelming peace; I believe that’s why they started the car and shut the doors,” Nantz said. “I don’t know what these gunmen saw or felt at that very moment, but I do know they had evil intentions and were stopped by the power of intercessory prayer.

“I didn’t realize that when I prayed for them not to touch my body, they didn’t touch anything on my body -- nothing. When we pray, ‘Lord, keep me from a situation,’ or, ‘Lord, bless me in this way,’ He’s literal about it.

“I was thinking purity-wise, ‘Keep them from harming me.’ And He answered, ‘Mendy, I can do so much better. I can keep them from touching you anywhere -- from laying a finger on you.’ That’s amazing to me.”

ASPIRING PRAYER WARRIOR

The experience has galvanized Nantz to bolster her own prayer life, moving past what she calls “half-hearted praying” to become a true prayer warrior -- and she’s got the perfect role model in mind.

“When you think of Southern Baptist women, the faithful ones, they’re prayer warriors,” she said. “They get down on their knees, and they pray daily for their missionaries, their families, their church, their pastors.

“That’s something I’ve always wanted to be. I used to think, ‘I’m too young to be who they are now. When I get older, when I retire, that’s when I’ll become this missionary prayer warrior.’ But through this experience, I know I can be that lady right now,” she added. “And now I have an insight to what drives them to prayer -- they know how to pray specifically.”

Although the kidnapping has forced her to make some lifestyle changes, Nantz said it hasn’t shaken the Lord’s calling on her life as a Southern Baptist missionary.

“I don’t get in my car and just drive off to anywhere now,” she said. “I am more aware and more cautious. I’m a little bit more jumpy. But that doesn’t stop me from continuing on. ... If the Lord can take me through that, He can take me through anything.

“There’s nothing scarier than being out of the will of God. And there is nothing more calming, more peaceful than being in a terrifying situation but right in the middle of His will.”

Above all, Nantz said the kidnapping has also strengthened her relationship with the Lord.

“My perspective has changed. I want more than anything [to have] a true, intimate, worshipful relationship with God,” she said. “And I do praise Him for every day. I praise Him for everything. Even for the hardships, because they make us stronger.

“This could have happened to any other woman here. However, they have children and they have husbands, and I don’t know that their reaction would have been the same as mine. And I give Him praise for allowing it to be me. For allowing me to go through it and be the example and allowing others to learn through my experience.”

HOPEFUL WITNESS

Kenyan authorities have told Nantz it’s unlikely they will ever catch her kidnappers. But whether or not they are brought to justice in this world, Nantz hopes she will see them again in the next.

“I do pray that they come to know the Lord; that this experience wouldn’t be in vain, but something for the Kingdom would come of this,” she said. “I’d love to see them in heaven and hear them say, ‘You’re the girl that spoke the name of Jesus into our lives.’ I would love to see that. I would love to hear that someday.”

The history of the people of Israel seemed to be one basic cycle repeating itself over and over: conviction and repentance of sin, followed by short-lived victory, followed by an eventual falling back into sin.

Nehemiah 9 presents a point in time when the Israelites recognized this cycle and wanted to do something about it. In verses 9-31 of this chapter, the cycle is described in their prayer:

1) STEP ONE: Because of their sins, God turns the Israelites over to be enslaved and oppressed by other nations. He does this to discipline them, waking them up to their own unrighteousness and their need of him.

2) STEP TWO: It works. After being oppressed for a while and realizing their own inability to restore their freedom, the Israelites repent and humble themselves, and call on the Lord to rescue them.

3) STEP THREE: God delivers the people from bondage and suffering at the hand of their oppressors, and abundantly reestablishes their fortune.

4) STEP FOUR: After being at rest and in freedom for a while, they begin taking for granted God’s ongoing care and sustenance. His law seems now an encumbrance rather than a means to freedom. Removed from oppression - a very present reminder of their physical need for God - Israel apathetically sinks again into sin.

5) Then, as they recalled, it was back to step one for a repeat of the cycle: “As soon as they were at rest, they again did what was evil in your sight. Then you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies so that they ruled over them. And when they cried out to you again, you heard from heaven, and in your compassion you delivered them time after time” (Neh. 9:28).

Annie Dieselberg works with the NightLight mission that focuses on rescuing women from the sex industry in Bangkok, Thailand. What follows is a story of one of her experiences

________

“What the *** do you think this country is here for!”

The large buff man was leaning over the seat in the bar yelling at my mission teammate. I had seen him come into the bar with his buddies. They had immediately begun to fondle the women and treat them like sex dolls. I tried to ignore them even when they threw some comments my way. One of them sat next to my teammate and made a rude remark. She told him his behavior was disgusting and got up to move back away from him. He immediately went into a rage and began to cuss and yell. “How else do you think the buffalos get paid for. . .” We were trying to avoid confrontation but he was demanding it. He then bought a basket of ping-pong balls used to throw at the women on the bar and thew them back at us. Chaos had erupted and it felt like everything was out of control. All I could do was point and say, “In the name of Jesus. . .” repeatedly but I didn’t know what more to say after that. It was a desperate plea for intervention.

Two large ladyboys in suits headed toward us - management! Oh no, I thought, we are going to be kicked out of the bar. I was ready to leave but not like that. The larger of the two in a bright yellow jacket approached me and stunned me by introducing himself as the head manager of the bar and apologizing. I was speechless for a second and then I told him how the man had insulted Thailand. I asked him to protect the women of his bar and not allow them to go with these men as they were demeaning and possibly dangerous. He thanked me and said, “These men who treat women like these . . . all of them at least have a mother and that should cause them to treat women better.”

The man at this point, having made a huge scene in the bar and seeing that we were receiving the sympathy, began to feel some guilt. He tried to throw a large sum of money at the teammate. She kept throwing it back and he would yell, “It’s not dirty money!!” The manager said, “Don’t take his money! Everything is not about money. There are more important things in life than money.” Again, I was stunned . . . this was the head manager of this go-go bar.

I decided to take another risk and I reached into my bag and pulled out a Christian booklet and handed it to the manager. He immediately began to read it while standing at my table. I asked him, “Do you like to read?” He answered me, “I really like these. Christians have handed these out to me and whenever I feel depressed or weary I read these and I feel better.” He then asked me where I went to church and if he could come. “When I was a kid,” he told me, “I went to a Christian school. I don’t like this job. I know its not good and I want to change.” I asked him if I could pray with him.

Right there in a dark bar, with girls dancing on the stage, a foreign man trying to make penance for his bad behavior, and loud music blaring, I held the hands of this ladyboy, the top manager. I looked him in the eyes and I prayed for him and for the destiny that God has prepared for him. He was touched and he thanked me. I paid my bill and walked out hugging the women who were with the rude customers on my way out. When we got out the door I began to jump up and down. What had started out as chaotic and evil, God had turned around to reveal himself to the manager and for his glory.

[A long testimony of a hiking couple who had a near-death experience in the Grand Canyon, and the spiritual lessons they learned from it.]

Grand Canyon Story, June 2014

Catherine and I had been so excited about our vacation. We planned to backpack for three nights in the Grand Canyon and then hike and camp in Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. This was a trip we had both wanted to take even before we ever knew each other. The airplane tickets and trip dates were scheduled for June 2-14, 2014. This would give us enough time to hit the highlights in each of those locations and include some other fun side trips in between. We were both in good physical shape going into the trip; Catherine had been working out and running extensively, and I had just trained for and completed a 60 mile mountain bike race. Neither of us had any reservations or concerns about the backpacking or hiking we planned to do throughout the trip.

On Wednesday, June 4, we arrived at Grand Canyon National Park and camped at Mather Campground on the rim. We had an enjoyable evening looking at and taking pictures of the canyon from the rim, gathering last minute supplies, showering before our 3 night backpacking trip, and eating a good supper. The alarm would be going off the next morning at 3:15, Thursday, June 5 so we were in bed by 8:30-9:00 to get a decent night’s sleep. If I recall, we both slept well until we woke up at 3:15. Once we were up, we were both hurrying around packing our backpacks, tearing down our campsite, and eating a good breakfast of eggs, ham, and cheese. We were at the Hermit’s Rest Shuttle pickup by 4:45 and got on the shuttle at 5:00. The shuttle stopped at all the overlooks along the way, so we didn’t make it to Hermit’s Rest trailhead until 5:45.

After taking a couple of pictures and a bathroom stop, we were on the trail by 6:00. We each carried five liters of water for the day along with food for four days and our camping equipment. The Hermit trail was incredibly beautiful on the hike down. It was very rough, steep, and rocky, but nothing that I felt we weren’t completely capable of. Both of us had been on trails similar to it.

Along the way down, we would stop occasionally to take a picture or to look at something or to rest for a few minutes. We only took two or three breaks of note on the way down, ranging from ten to thirty minutes. At two of them I know for sure that we ate a Clif bar and/or our PB&J burrito or bagel–Catherine had the bagel and I had the burrito. At one of these breaks, since we both had drained our two liter Camelbacks, we refilled with the two liter reservoir each of us had in our packs. The weather felt really nice and dry until about 9:30-10:00 when we began walking in the sun, closer to the bottom of the canyon. The deeper into the canyon we walked, the hotter it got, as was expected.

Sometime around 11:00-11:30 we saw another group of hikers coming our way from Hermit Creek. We stopped and spoke with them for a few minutes and they told us about a really nice pool near the campsite right on Hermit Creek. We thanked them for the suggestion and told them we’d definitely have to get in and cool off. Around 12:00 we made it down to Hermit Creek Campsite, which was still 1.5 miles short of where we had intended to camp at Hermit Rapids, right on the Colorado River.

Once at Hermit Creek, we threw our packs down to take a good rest and eat. At this point Catherine told me she was not feeling well and was tired with a headache. I wasn’t too concerned at the time but encouraged her to rest and cool off by the pool as well as eat and drink. We hung out by the pool for around an hour. I don’t recall how much either of us was drinking while we were there, but I’m sure we both were drinking some. I do know that once we arrived at Hermit Creek we had emptied our Camelbacks again (we now had each drunk four liters). While we were resting at the Hermit Creek pool, Catherine began feeling better and both looked and was acting completely normal. Even though Hermit Creek Campsite looked like a great place to camp, I told Catherine that I’d like to walk on down to Hermit Rapids and check it out since that was what our original plan was. If we didn’t like it, we would just walk back to the Hermit Creek Campsite since it didn’t look like anyone else would be there.

Around 1:00 pm on Thursday, June 5, we left Hermit Creek to walk the 1.5 miles to Hermit Rapids to check it out. Shortly after we began, Catherine began walking very slowly, as if she were tired. We walked approximately three quarters of a mile from Hermit Creek and she was totally out of steam and I could tell at that point that she really felt bad. We made it to a little overhang with shade underneath it to rest until she got to feeling better. I encouraged her to eat some snacks and I believe she ate some prunes and maybe a Clif bar or some nuts. We rested under the overhang for about three hours. During that time, I put a wet bandana around her neck multiple times to keep her cool.

After about thirty minutes, I told her to stay there and I would walk down to Hermit Rapids to determine whether or not we should camp there or go back to Hermit Creek. Hermit Rapids ended up being a neat location right by the Colorado River, but it was incredibly hot there and felt like an oven (+100°F). I walked back up Hermit Creek where Catherine was resting under the overhang and continued to put wet bananas or towels on her to keep her cool. At 4:00, I told her that even though she still felt bad, we needed to walk back up to Hermit Creek Campsite where we would be in a better situation to get her feeling better. There we could set up camp and cool off in the pool at Hermit Creek. When we left the overhang, Catherine slung on her pack and after a few steps I could tell she wasn’t able to carry it without great difficulty. So I took her pack and mine and we began walking the three quarters of a mile back to where we had left a few hours earlier. The whole way Catherine was walking very slowly and I obviously knew that something wasn’t right. My best guess was that she had gotten too hot and just needed rest, water, and to cool down. I do remember thinking that I had never seen her like this before. She has always been a strong hiker and tough to push through minor discomforts (maybe this turned out to be a bad thing on this trip).

Once we got back to Hermit Creek Campsite, we threw down our packs and I went down to cool off in the water while Catherine stayed where we were going to pitch our tent to rest for a few minutes before she came down to join me. About the time I was coming back to camp, she was going down to the water to wash off and enjoy the water. I began setting up camp and getting ready to cook supper while Catherine was washing off in the creek. By the time she came back up to the tent, I had remembered that I had a first aid book in my first aid kit and had been reading it.

I found the section on heat exhaustion (which is what I thought she had) and she had almost every single symptom. It wasn’t until much later that I found out she had a condition I’d never heard of called hyponatremia, or very low sodium, from drinking too much water. Turns out, the symptoms for heat exhaustion and hyponatremia are nearly identical, and my first aid booklet didn’t say anything about hyponatremia.

The treatment my book recommended for heat exhaustion was to rest, drink fluids, and lower the patient’s body temperature by either wrapping her in wet clothing or immersing her in water. After reading that and the following section on heat stroke (which listed horrible symptoms such as seizures, coma, and an 80% fatality rate) I immediately went and soaked handkerchiefs and my long sleeved cotton shirt in the creek and made her wrap up in them. I recall her saying she was cold from this, but I assured her we had to lower her body temperature to get her feeling better. I had her neck wrapped with a handkerchief, water bottles in each of her armpits, another handkerchief or shirt on her chest, my soaked long sleeved shirt wrapped around her legs, along with another cold water bottle between her legs.

By the time I had done this it was roughly 7:00 and we had already eaten supper. When I had cooked earlier, Catherine had told me she was nauseated and didn’t feel like eating, but I forced her to eat the majority of a bowl of Ramen noodles and salmon. Sometime around supper time, I noticed that Catherine was not with it 100% mentally so I began asking her random questions. Her answers were hit or miss at best. This was incredibly alarming to me, but I didn’t know what else to do except continue to let her rest and get her body temperature down. Between 7:00-8:00, Catherine rested either in the tent or sitting on a rock outside the tent, wrapped in the wet shirts and handkerchiefs.

As I kept reading in the first aid booklet, I read more into the heat stroke section and began getting very concerned. In order to avoid being another statistic in the 80% fatality rate it listed, I told her we needed to get her down to the pool in the creek and let her sit in it for a while. She was able to walk to the pool on her own, even though I was helping her so she wouldn’t fall on the rough trail down to it. We soaked her in the pool for roughly 15-20 minutes between 8:00 and 8:30. After doing this, I remember her telling me that she was feeling better and her headache had subsided. She was also responding more normally to the random questions I was asking her. As we laid back down in the tent, I read some scripture to Catherine and prayed for her aloud. I remember being worried enough at that point that I prayed Matthew 21:22 that says “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Even as worried as I was at that point, I trusted that after a good night’s rest she would be fine the next morning. At 9:00, after reading scripture on my phone and praying together, we turned the headlamps off and tried to go to sleep.

At 10:00, Catherine woke me up screaming with her first seizure. It was a full body seizure that lasted roughly one to two minutes. She was foaming at the mouth, convulsing from the seizure, and also bleeding from the mouth from biting her tongue. That was the scariest and worst moment of my life. I had no idea what to do and we were at the bottom of the Grand Canyon by ourselves, miles from anyone, on one of the most remote trails in the canyon, and 8 miles and 4000 feet of climbing from help on the rim. I recall screaming as hard as I could for help, knowing nobody was around or could hear me but I didn’t know what else to do.

At some point during all this it came to me that she was likely having a heat stroke. All I knew to do was read the first aid book for advice and ask our Lord in prayer for His help. The treatment given by the book was to reduce the body temperature as soon as possible and it listed water immersion as a means to reaching that goal. Immediately I opened the tent to begin dragging Catherine out of it where I could carry her to the pool of water. She was completely unconscious and totally limp. I don’t recall if her eyes were open or closed, but I believe open at this point. As I drug her out of the tent, I scooped her up in my arms to carry her at chest level and to try to stabilize her neck because it seemed so loose.

I carried her down the short but steep and rocky trail to the pool of water. It was such a rough trail and she was so awkward to carry, being limp, I believe I fell with her one or two times, continuing to pray to our heavenly Father for strength and help. As I dunked her into the pool of water, even though she was mentally not with me, her body was fighting me physically because of the cool water. I believe this helped to shock her system, to keep her with me. As I forced her to stay in the water instead of collapsing onto the rock next to the pool, she was sort of crying and moaning and didn’t seem to be able to control her body whatsoever. I just kept talking to her and telling her how much I loved her and that it was all going to be okay.

After maybe ten minutes in the water, I pulled her out, keeping her wrapped in the wet clothes and handkerchiefs and we laid down on the rock next to the pool. During this time she actually came to and asked me what had happened, why we were down there, and also told me that her tongue was hurting. At some point I ran back up the tent and got her Thermarest sleeping pad to keep her comfortable along with some water and food so we could stay by the creek where it was cooler. After getting her onto her Thermarest, I just remember talking to her constantly, making sure she was still with me, and constantly praying that the Lord would be with us to heal Catherine and get us out of there.

Around 11:00, as we were lying on the rock by the pool, Catherine began screaming again in her second seizure. These screams were like nothing I’d ever heard before. They were not her screams; they were a horrible, wretched, out-of-her-mind type of screams that I pray I never have to hear again. After another couple of minutes of seizing and the after effects, I drug her back into the water at which point her body began fighting me to get out of it again, even though she was unconscious mentally. I can recall how horrible and scared I felt to force her down into the water because she was again kind of moaning and crying as I kept her in the water. I didn’t know what else to do ... my first aid booklet was out of answers at that point.

After this seizure and holding her down in the water for another ten to fifteen minutes, she was completely unconscious and unresponsive. However, I believe I could get her to open her eyes occasionally as I was talking to her and calling her name. Sometime around this point, I recall telling myself that if she was still with me at 12:00, I would leave and start hiking back to the rim for help.

Until 12:00, I just lay with her, scared to death that she was going to go on to be with the Lord at any minute. I talked to her almost constantly, hoping she could hear me, just saying things to her that a husband would want to tell his wife in such a situation, or praying to the Lord that He would bring us through this and save her physically as he already had spiritually. The verses that I continued praying were Matthew 21:22 and James 5:16 which says, “The effective prayer of the righteous man can accomplish much.” I was praying that, even though I knew I wasn’t righteous on my own aside from Christ, He would hear my prayers and save Catherine’s life.

Around 12:00, I ran back up to the campsite and began getting my stuff together so I could leave and go get help. I was only going to carry food, water, my GPS, and some odds and ends that were still in my pack. I changed clothes, laced one boot up, and, as I began lacing the other, I heard Catherine screaming again with her third seizure. I sprinted back down the hill and saw she was having another full body seizure. After she stopped, I drug her back into the water, absolutely out of options other than to continue to try to decrease her body temperature. Again she was fighting me physically but was not with it mentally. After another ten or fifteen minutes in the water, I pulled her out and continued to try to keep the wet handkerchiefs and shirt on her. At that point I remember being confused as to why this was still happening because she appeared to be shaking from the cold water.

Later on, as she continued to shiver from the cold and I was fairly certain she was dying, I took the wet shirt and handkerchiefs off of her and wrapped her in my sleeping bag that I had brought down at some point. I wanted her to be comfortable. My prayer at this point — I was completely desperate — was that even though I was selfish and wanted to keep my wife with me, if the Lord was taking her home, I prayed that she would go gently and not be in any pain. The little comfort I felt came from knowing without a doubt where Catherine would spend her eternity. I had no question that she would be with God in Heaven and whatever happened I knew she would be better off there, even though I would miss her terribly while I was still on earth.

I monitored Catherine’s pulse and breath continuously to make sure she was still with me. They were both incredibly weak and I had to pay close attention to notice either. I continued to talk to her and would say her name, hoping she was still with me and would open her eyes. I think she did sometimes, but I’m not sure of it now. She seemed so close to death at that point, I just decided to stay with her and lie beside her because I wanted to be with her for that. At one point, I turned my phone on again and tried to call 911, and, as I figured, I had no service. I then turned the phone to airplane mode so the battery wouldn’t run down in case I needed it later and I read scripture to Catherine as we were lying there. If the Lord was going to take her home, I couldn’t think of a better way to go than to the reading of scripture.

At 2:00, as I continued to lie there with her, it hit me that since she was still breathing, I needed to try to get out and get help. So I put my boots on and ran back up to the tent, grabbed my pack, water bladders, and food. One of the things I am so thankful for is that the Lord gave me a focus throughout all this. Even though I had some major come apart times throughout, He kept me focused and gave me clear thinking so I would have enough sense to get myself food and plenty of water for the nearly eight miles and 4000 feet of climbing I had ahead of me on one of the roughest trails in the Grand Canyon. I had to filter water for myself because I wanted to leave Catherine with what we had in case she miraculously woke up on her own.

After filtering water for myself and throwing some snacks in my pack, I knelt down and told Catherine I had to leave her to go get help and that I loved her, but she was still unconscious. Then, at 2:25 a.m., I put on my headlight, grabbed my trekking poles, and started walking. I also had a clear enough mind to know that even though on a good day I might have been able to run out, I needed to pace myself because I knew that I HAD to get out or we didn’t have a chance. At this point, I had been up for almost twenty-four hours.

After nearly forty-five minutes of hard hiking, I began getting light headed and dizzy, to the point that I couldn’t keep walking, so I forced myself to sit down for five minutes to rest. I felt so bad physically that I decided to start alternating walking for fifteen or twenty minutes and resting for five, and to keep that up as long as I could. After I got up and walked maybe fifteen more minutes, I felt even worse than I did before, so I lay down on the trail and allowed myself ten minutes to get it together and get going. At the ten minute mark, I got up and got back to walking. After this point, I kept up the rule of resting briefly every twenty minutes.

The Hermit Trail, as beautiful as it is during the day, is a very rough trail and was especially rough at night by headlamp. At some point during the hike out, I must have missed a switchback. I got off the trail on the side of the canyon on a steep slope with shale everywhere. Once I realized I was no longer on the trail, I made sure I knew where I came from and then began looking around for the trail. It looked like there were cairns everywhere ... but none of them led to the trail. After a number of minutes I began walking up the slope, hoping the trail was above me and eventually got to a point from which I could see the trail. I was elated to find the trail because if I hadn’t been able to find it quickly, I knew I would need to sit there until daylight so I would be more likely to find the trail and less likely to slide off the side of the canyon wall on the shale.

At some points the trail got easier, so I was able to walk for thirty or forty minutes before taking a break. When I finally made it to the old Hermit Trail rest stop, I knew that I would make it. I only had two and a half miles to go. So I refilled my camelback with water and started moving. I was moving at a very good pace at this point because I think my adrenaline must have kicked back in and I knew I was getting close to help.

All along the hike out, I had been praying constantly the simplest prayer: “Lord, help us! You have saved us spiritually, please just save Catherine physically.” I also prayed that I would meet someone on the hike out who could maybe get help quicker than I could, because I was exhausted. Only about fifteen minutes after leaving the old rest shelter, I ran into a married couple and I immediately told them the situation in case they could provide some kind of help. The man replied (and this is a bit of humor in hindsight) “Ok, so I have some bad news and good news. The good news is that I’m a physician, but the bad news is I’m a psychiatrist and haven’t practiced medicine in a long time.” At that point I remember thinking, “Why am I talking to you when I need to get help?!” However, they were incredibly kind and were probably freaked out after hearing the situation. I recall the man suggesting that I could take the electrolyte replacement powder he had and carry it down to her because he thought it would help. I replied that I did not think that I could make it back down at that point I was so exhausted. I knew I could get her help faster by getting to the rim than by hiking back down with some Gatorade powder.

I told them that I needed to keep going to get help and then they asked to pray with me. At that suggestion, I responded with an absolute, “YES.” They offered a very kind prayer to God, asking for His help and then the three of us headed back up the trail to the rim. Not five minutes after we started walking, we met another man, by himself, hiking down with full backpacking gear. I immediately asked him where he was headed and he replied that he was going to Hermit Creek Campsite. I then proceeded to tell him briefly what happened and, in case he got to Catherine before the search and rescue team, to just be with her. I told him she was alive when I left, but didn’t know her condition now.

After leaving this gentleman, the first man I ran into stayed to tell the guy more of the situation while his wife and I headed up the trail. She was walking ahead of me, borderline running and I was right behind her. After a few minutes, she tired and stopped to rest and I kept moving. As exhausted as I was, the Lord allowed me the strength to move fast over the last two miles of trail and I never stopped till I reached the rim.

Once I made it to the rim, I started running and screaming for help. There were several cars around, but I didn’t see a soul. I ran to the two trailers that house park workers there at Hermit’s Rest and began banging on their doors screaming for help. No one came to the door. One of the trailers definitely had someone in there because I could hear loud rock music blaring through the door. No matter how hard I banged on the door or screamed, no one ever came so I kept running up to the shuttle stop, hoping to catch a shuttle for help.

Once I made it to the shuttle stop, I had one bar of service on my cell phone and immediately called 911 for help. The 911 operator finally connected me to the park service at which point they alerted the search and rescue team of the situation. At some point, the operator told me to get on the shuttle and take it back to the main shuttle hub where a ranger would be waiting on me. I was a bit frustrated wondering why I had to do this because I knew the shuttle would take thirty minutes or more to drive the eight miles back to the main hub, but I didn’t have a choice. I alerted the shuttle driver to the situation, he confirmed it with 911, and then I started the ride back to the main shuttle hub. After just a few minutes, the rangers began calling over the shuttle radio looking for me, so the driver turned around and brought me right back to Hermit’s Rest. There were two rangers waiting for me: Joelle Baird and John Kissner. Once I explained the situation to them, Joelle realized it was not a joke, and she called the SAR coordinator to give them more details so the SAR team could be preparing to go to Catherine.

Joelle and John were extraordinarily kind and courteous as we sat together at Hermit’s Rest and the rest of the day as they stayed with me, constantly letting me know what was going on, giving me food and Gatorades, and eventually driving me to Flagstaff Medical Center. They both did an excellent job and I can’t express how appreciative I am to them for talking to me to keep my mind occupied, and keeping me informed throughout the search and rescue process. I’m sure that it was a huge inconvenience for the park to pull two rangers off their normal duties for a day to babysit, but I sure appreciated it.

At some point, I rode with Joelle and John down to the Bright Angel Trail parking area, where my car was parked and where Catherine and I had planned to hike out originally. While we were sitting there, I believe the SAR team got to Catherine, which was sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m. Eventually, Joelle was able to find out Catherine’s condition. I recall her being very vague; basically she just said the team was with her and was treating her. I think at this point I just had to ask, “Is she still alive though?” Joelle then told me that Catherine was still alive, but was in very serious condition. Even though I knew Catherine was in serious condition, I was thankful and tremendously joyful to hear she was still alive and with me (can’t quite put this into words).

We stayed there in the parking lot for a while and then I followed them in my car to one of the ranger offices where I met with another park ranger, Peter Maggio, to explain the ordeal. Mr. Maggio was also incredibly courteous and professional (as every single one of the park rangers was that I met). I explained the situation to Mr. Maggio, so he would have an official account of what happened. I had no problem telling them the story because I knew it was important for them to have that information for their legal records and medical information.

While with Mr. Maggio, occasionally more news would come in on Catherine’s condition, including when they transferred her from the SAR helicopter to a med-flight helicopter to be taken to Flagstaff Medical Center. While sitting in the ranger office, they fed me some more food and Gatorades. After a while, one of the medics came in who had treated Catherine in the helicopter transition, CJ Malcom. I am very thankful to CJ for letting me know how Catherine was doing and finally letting me know that he thought she would make it, even though she was still in very serious condition.

Wondering how I’d gotten help, CJ asked me, “Did you find someone rafting the Colorado River with a satellite phone?” I responded that I had walked out that morning and had to leave her at 2:30 a.m. in order to get help. He and the other rangers that hadn’t heard seemed surprised and said they couldn’t believe I had done that. CJ told me that he didn’t know how I was able to leave her, even though that was the only option and she would have certainly died if I had not left to get help. I responded that even though it was the hardest thing I had ever done and hopefully will ever have to do, the comfort I had in leaving her was that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Catherine did die, she would be going home to God in heaven. I explained that Catherine and I are Christians, and not just because of the incident, and I knew God would be faithful, one way or another.

After speaking with Joelle and John, they convinced me to accept their kind offer and drove me to the hospital in Flagstaff. Joelle drove me in the rental and John followed. We arrived at the hospital around 1:00 or 1:30, where I was taken to Catherine in the ER. She was hooked up to an IV and semiconscious. Nothing could express how grateful I was to see her alive. She had a hard time answering the questions posed by Michelle, her ER nurse. Catherine thought for a while that it was 2012, but after some prompting she arrived at 2014. She did, however, remember who the president was and who I was. Every few hours they took her blood to check her sodium and CK levels. Throughout the afternoon, doctors were in and out checking on her and she would only stay awake for very short periods of time.

Catherine was in a lot of pain throughout the day because of her mangled tongue. By 7:30 or 8:00 that evening, they took us to a room in the ICU and were fairly confident that we would be released in the next day or two. She was not critical at this point, as her sodium levels had stabilized, but the doctors in the other part of the hospital did not feel comfortable treating her, so she remained in the ICU.

Finally, by about 9:00 that night, after the nurses had assured me she was stable and I was through delivering the news to the family and close friends, I lay down in a fold out bed beside Catherine and the dam broke. All that I had held together came tumbling apart as my wife slept a few feet away. A little while later, after being awake for more than forty tumultuous hours, I, too, was finally able to sleep.

After the blood test in the middle of the night, Craig, the ICU nurse, came in to tell us her CK (or CPK) numbers had made a significant jump. For the next several days, the doctors continued to monitor her blood, checking the CK levels more and more frequently as the numbers continued to climb. Normal is 140, but her number peaked at 30,000 early Tuesday morning. Dr. Murphy came in and admitted to us that he was not expecting her number to get that high. The number was certainly high enough to be of concern, but Dr. Murphy assured us that Catherine’s muscles felt supple, which was the biggest indication of how she was faring. If her muscles had become firm, that’s when we would have had reason to be worried. Rhabdomyolysis (associated with high CK numbers) can cause kidney damage, muscle damage, and compartment syndrome which sometimes can result in a fasciotomy. Thankfully, Catherine never reached that point, even with her high CK level.

Originally, Catherine’s parents decided not to fly out because we thought she would be released from the hospital quickly. Once her CK numbers started to cause concern, her parents booked a flight and were out there by late Sunday evening. Even though I wanted to be with Catherine in the hospital, I was incredibly relieved to be able to trade with her mom and get a good night’s sleep in the hotel they had booked. Just having her parents out there with us was a comfort to me, as was the continued stream of encouraging prayers and texts from our church family and friends back home. I knew without a doubt that many people were lifting Catherine and myself up in continued prayer the entire time we were in the hospital.

To our great relief, her CK number began to fall by her second blood test on Tuesday. The doctors had told us that she could not be released until her CK level had fallen to at least 5,000, which was a long way to go from 30,000. The number had gone down once before, by only a thousand or so, and then gone back up to reach its final peak, so we were not entirely comfortable until we saw the number start to plummet. At that point, each time her blood was taken, the CK number nearly halved.

On Tuesday afternoon, we had a great surprise: Emily Pearce, Catherine’s EMT in the canyon, along with her doctor colleague, came to talk to us. As soon as she stepped in the room, I knew who she was, and I was overcome with a wave of emotion at seeing my wife’s rescuer. She said she was glad she could find us, as we had moved out of the ICU by this point to the regular part of the hospital. She said that Catherine had been able to give her correct name while in the canyon and that was the only way she was able to find our room.

Emily wanted to hear the events that led up to Catherine developing hyponatremia, so I told my part of the story. Afterwards, she picked up with her part of the story, which began with the helicopter arriving at Hermit Creek. She admitted that she knew it was serious when they flew over Catherine in the helicopter and she didn’t move at all. In their profession, they are extremely safety conscious and are always supposed to wait until the helicopter blades stop moving before exiting the aircraft. This time, as soon as the chopper touched down, her and her team leapt out and ran down to where Catherine was lying by the creek. They knew it was a bad situation and didn’t want to waste any time.

They took her blood and confirmed that she had hyponatremia. Her sodium was dangerously low at 118. Immediately, they hooked her up to a hydrasaline IV and pumped in 300 ml. That revived her enough that she said a few words, including her name. The rescue team treated Catherine in the canyon for about forty-five minutes. The team didn’t feel comfortable carrying her back up the trail I’d carried her down, so they placed her on a flatboard with an EMT beside her and hauled her out of the canyon hanging from a rope under the helicopter. All Catherine remembers from the rescue is one mental image of a helicopter in the sky above her with a long, curved cable tracing a line down to her.

To hear Emily’s portion of what happened to Catherine was chilling, although I’m glad she shared it. According to Emily, Catherine had a number of seizures during the six or so hours that she was alone. Vomit was scattered around her on the rock where she lay and more blood had leaked out onto her face. She confirmed what I had feared: if I had not gone for help when I did, Catherine would have died. Even though I knew I had to leave her in the canyon to get help, it was a relief to hear from Catherine’s rescuer that I had made the right decision, considering it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

On Wednesday morning, the doctor decided to release us from the hospital because Catherine’s CK number had continued to drop and was at 9000. They were confident since it had dropped from 30,000 down to 9,000, it would continue to decrease until back to normal. Even as tired and weak as Catherine still was, she was excited to be getting out of the hospital. Patsy, Steve, and I were too. It was an incredible relief to know that she was going to be fine and should (Lord willing) continue to heal and be back to normal in the weeks ahead. Once out of the hospital, we killed some time in Flagstaff until Thursday afternoon, at which point Catherine and I drove to Las Vegas to catch out flight home Friday morning. We were finally headed home!

In light of the event, I found myself responding to certain scriptures with a new perspective. Not only do the two scriptures I prayed continuously while in the canyon have a profound importance to me, verses such as James 1:2-4 and James 4:13-16 have become part of my life experience as opposed to a line in the Bible that I look to as a good example. “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let that endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” Despite my confusion, helplessness, and utter sadness at what was happening to Catherine, I truly did feel a sense of peace, which I can consider a type of joy in the midst of that situation. Peace at knowing where my wife would spend eternity is what enabled me to leave her, to go get help. And joy isn’t always a happy experience, the way the world defines it. I felt this kind of joy in the midst of that trial.

James 4:14-16 admonishes, “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’” How true it is that we are but a vapor. I saw how quickly someone who was in great physical condition, healthy, and young could slip dangerously close to death in a matter of hours. We are not guaranteed tomorrow, and this experience really drove that point home for me. If the Lord wills, I will see tomorrow.

As Catherine began to return to her faculties mentally while in the hospital, we discussed how this experience could be used for God’s glory, since we both agreed that was the whole purpose for having gone through it. Catherine understood that the only reason she was granted healing was because there must be some way in which she can glorify the Lord while still on earth. Telling our story is one of those ways. I told her that while hiking out of the canyon, thinking that she might never wake up, I considered what burdens she would be leaving behind that I could see to. The first thing that came to my mind was sharing the gospel with those we’d had concerns about, including members of our families and some of our friends. We have since had many of these discussions, knowing that putting off difficult or awkward conversations is no longer an option, since later may never come, for them or for us. It is our prayer that God would use this story in our lives to glorify Himself and, if He wills, bring someone unto salvation.

In addition, this story has proved to be a way in which we can live out 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 which says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” The Lord certainly sustained me — and Catherine, at least physically — during this trial, and I hope to be able to share that with others in the hope of providing comfort to those who are suffering.

I can honestly say that I feel blessed to have gone through this experience for many reasons. First of all, for the conversations we have had with friends and family. Secondly, for the way in which the Lord has already allowed this story to provide comfort and encouragement to many. Furthermore, I feel a nearness to Christ that I did not know before and a deeper understanding of just how fragile we are, which has affected my outlook on many things. And lastly, I feel an unquenchable, unspeakable joy at the way He chose to answer my prayers, though I know fully it was not something I deserved. The Lord is faithful, and I must trust Him, for our lives are in His hands.

The situations in our lives are not always to our liking: the places we must live, the people we must associate with, or the problems we encounter. And these things may not always be our fault. We may have been the victims of circumstances, or we may have made decisions which we thought were right but which have not worked out as we expected. Some people feel that way about their marriages — the woman, for example, who thought the man she married was a believer. She later found out that he had deceived her. His actions continually reflected his disinterest in the things of the Lord and caused her endless grief. There is a story in God’s Word that will encourage folks in adverse circumstances such as these.

The man of the house was none other than the king of the greatest empire in the world of his day. The Jews called him Ahasuerus, the Hebrew form of his Persian name. Secular history knows him better by his Greek name, King Xerxes I who ruled Persia from 486 to 465 B.C. His powerful empire spread from India to Ethiopia (Esth. 1:1). But that wasn’t enough for him. The real passion of his life was to do what his father, Darius I, had never been able to do — conquer Greece.

The Word of God tells us that “in the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all his princes and attendants, the army officers of Persia and Media, the nobles, and the princes of his provinces being in his presence, when he displayed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor of his great majesty for many days, 180 days” (Esth. 1:3, 4). Such a high-level conference, lasting six months, had to be more than just a big party. It was probably a strategy session for Xerxes’ forthcoming invasion of Greece. Secular history tells us that he began that invasion not long after this magnificent convocation, in 481 B.C.

To conclude the conference, however, he planned seven special days of celebration and feasting (Esth. 1:5). When he was a little tipsy from his wine, he called for his beautiful queen, Vashti, so that he could show her off before his friends (Esth. 1:11). She refused to be made a public spectacle, and Ahasuerus was enraged. At the advice of his trusted counselors he decided to depose her by royal decree — the law of the Medes and the Persians which could never be reversed, not even by the king himself (Esth. 1:19). It was a rash decision which he would live to regret, but Ahasuerus was known to be an impulsive and headstrong man.

Besides that, he had more important things to do than worry about his harem. He was ready to conquer Greece. His armies were superior to theirs and the momentum of history was on his side. But in a succession of famous battles familiar to students of ancient history (Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea), his military might was finally broken, and he returned to his capital at Susa a beaten man. How he must have longed for the comfort and companionship of his deposed queen to soothe him in his shame and put his fractured ego back together. “After these things when the anger of King Ahasuerus had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her” (Esth. 2:1). But it was too late. His decree was irreversible.

That is when his aides suggested an all-Persia beauty contest to find a queen for King Ahasuerus. “Let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king. And let the king appoint overseers in all the provinces of his kingdom that they may gather every beautiful young virgin to Susa the capital, to the harem, into the custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who was in charge of the women; and let their cosmetics be given them. Then let the young lady who pleases the king be queen in place of Vashti” (Esth. 2:2-4). The whole thing sounded like fun to the king, so he gave his permission, and the search was on. A beauty contest is not a bad way to find a wife, if good looks are all you are looking for. But our sovereign God was going to give Ahasuerus a great deal more than good looks, whether he wanted it or not. God already had a wife picked out for this heathen king. Although God’s name is nowhere mentioned in this book, His providential hand is clearly visible, ruling and overruling in the affairs of men.

Unknown to Ahasuerus, the next queen of Persia was to be a young Jewess. She would probably have rather been in Jerusalem with her countrymen, but for some reason her parents had declined to go back when King Cyrus gave his permission fifty years earlier. The Jews in captivity had been allowed to settle down, open businesses, and live normal lives, and only 50,000 of them chose to return to Israel when they had the opportunity.

This woman’s parents were dead and her older cousin, Mordecai, was raising her. Scripture says, “And he was bringing up Hadassah, that is Esther, his uncle’s daughter, for she had neither father nor mother. Now the young lady was beautiful of form and face, and when her father and her mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter” ( Esth. 2:7). She was a lovely woman, and there was no way she could escape the clutches of the king’s servants who were scouring the land for beautiful women. “So it came about when the command and decree of the king were heard and many young ladies were gathered to Susa the capital into the custody of Hegai, that Esther was taken to the king’s palace into the custody of Hegai, who was in charge of the women” (Esth. 2:8).

Mordecai checked on Esther’s welfare daily, since he was a gatekeeper at the palace. He instructed her not to make her nationality known to anyone, probably to guard her against the unkind treatment directed against Jews in almost every country they have ever lived in, throughout their history, and she dutifully obeyed. Then when it was her turn to be ushered in to the king’s presence, she asked for nothing special with which to impress him, as the other girls had done. Her natural God-given beauty and evident loveliness of spirit alone captured the heart of the king. “And the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she found favor and kindness with him more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti” (Esth. 2:17).

Scripture never says that Esther wanted to marry Ahasuerus. It was a flattering offer, but she must have known that he would be less than an ideal husband, especially after what had happened to Vashti. But how do you say “no” to a tyrannical monarch without losing your head? So it was that this simple Jewish girl became the queen of the Persian empire. It was a rags to riches story unexcelled in human history.

The chronology of the book indicates that it was about five years later when the bubble burst and we find a crisis for God’s people. The culprit who caused the trouble must have been Hitler’s Old Testament hero. He was a vicious, anti-Semitic Amalakite named Haman, evidently a descendant of Agag, king of the Amalakites, whom King Saul had kept alive in disobedience to the command of the Lord (1 Sam. 15:8, 9). When Ahasuerus made him prime minister, everybody in the palace bowed down to him except Mordecai. He would bow his knee to none but God, and that infuriated Haman. He vowed not only to punish Mordecai, but to exterminate every living Jew in the Persian empire, and incidentally, that would include those in the land of Israel as well, for they were part of the empire. Haman got the king to agree to his plan and it was sealed with the king’s ring, the irreversible law of the Medes and the Persians. It was another hasty decision that Ahasuerus would live to regret.

“When Mordecai learned all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city and wailed loudly and bitterly. And he went as far as the king’s gate, for no one was to enter the king’s gate clothed in sackcloth. And in each and every province where the command and decree of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay on sackcloth and ashes” (Esth. 4:1-3).

Strange as it may seem, prayer is never specifically mentioned in this book, just as the name of God is never mentioned, but you can be sure that these Jews were praying. Fasting is referred to, and that is usually associated with prayer in Scripture. And the wailing probably indicates a desperate cry to God. These Jews were away from their land by their own choice, out of the place of blessing, separated from their place of worship, and that may be why neither God nor prayer are directly mentioned. But they were praying, and God was watching over them, superintending their circumstances to glorify His own name. He is doing the same for us even when we are not aware of it.

We are about to discover that there is a purpose for God’s appointments. This revelation is made through an exchange of communications between Esther and Mordecai. Esther sent one of the king’s chamberlains to find out why Mordecai was in mourning. Mordecai sent a message back explaining the whole diabolical plot, of which she was unaware, and encouraging her to intercede with the king. She answered quickly, reminding him that no one entered the king’s presence without being invited unless he was tired of living, and that the king had not invited her into his presence for a full month. There was one slim possibility — if the king saw her and extended his golden scepter, she could enter.

Mordecai may have missed God’s best by not returning to Israel, but his spiritual insight had increased since then. He was beginning to understand something of God’s sovereign grace and divine providence, beginning to see that God can use even the adversities of life to accomplish His purposes. He sent word back to Esther, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” (Esth. 4:13, 14). Esther is really no safer than any other Jew. When it becomes known that she is Jewish, her life will be endangered too. Mordecai is convinced that God is going to care for His people Israel, however. They may be far from Him, but He cannot let them perish, for that would be contrary to His promises. If He does not use Esther to deliver them, He will use some other means. He is a sovereign God.

You see, Mordecai had grasped the fact that God allowed them to remain in Persia, and may now be ready to turn their decision to stay into glory for Himself and deliverance for the Jewish people. “And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this.” What an outstanding illustration of the greatness of our God. He can take not only the circumstances of our lives that are beyond our control, but He can take the wrong decisions we have made, and even the sins we have committed, and work them out for good. The psalmist says: “For the wrath of man shall praise Thee” (Psa. 76:10). If God can make man’s wrath praise Him, He can certainly make our sins and shortcomings praise him.

That obviously does not mean we should live our lives in total disregard for the will of God, and then expect Him to work out the mess we make. There is an enormous load of unhappiness and sorrow on that road, as many Christians will testify. The consequences of willful sin can be unbearable. It does mean that when we put our lives in Christ’s hands and yield ourselves unreservedly to Him, we can be certain that He has a great plan for us from that moment on. He can use everything that has happened to us in the past and every circumstance in our present experience to help carry out that plan.

God has a purpose for you, right now, right where you are, no matter who you are, where you live, to whom you are married, what you have experienced in the past, or what you are facing in the future. In fact He has allowed you to come to this place in your life for a definite purpose, “for such a time as this.” He has something specific for you to accomplish in your present situation, and He wants you to look for the opportunities in that present sphere of influence.

You see, believers are a part of God’s great program on earth; they should be living with confidence as people of destiny. God does not want us moaning over our plight and looking for a way out. He will be honored when we claim His grace to be what He wants us to be and do what He wants us to do in our present circumstances. We must take advantage of the opportunities He has made available to us in the here and now. He may later open wider spheres of opportunity if that suits His purposes, but that is in His hands. Our responsibility is to let Him use us where we are.

Esther responded positively to Mordecai’s godly advice. She sent word saying, “Go, assemble all the Jews who are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens also will fast in the same way. And thus I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish” (Esth. 4:16). Her reference to fasting would reveal her great confidence in the power of prayer, particularly in the fellowship of other believers in prayer. If we are facing trying circumstances, it might be wise to solicit the prayer support of other Christians. We do not need to air all our dirty linen, run down our spouses or gossip about anybody else involved in the problem. All we need to do is admit that we have a need and ask our friends to stand with us in prayer.

With that shroud of prayer surrounding and protecting us, the next step is to determine in our hearts that we shall do the will of God in that situation, whatever the cost or consequence. “I will go in to the king,” Esther affirmed, “and if I perish, I perish.” God may want us to carry out some unpleasant task. It may involve confronting someone whom we would rather avoid or admitting something we have tried to hide, as it did with Esther. But if we know it to be the will of God, we must do it. And God will honor it. He did for Esther.

God worked in a marvelous way. In fact, he performed a miracle for our encouragement. First of all, He laid it on the king’s heart to extend the golden scepter, and Esther approached the throne. She spoke with quiet dignity rather than selfish demands or angry accusations. And instead of blurting out the problem, she invited Ahasuerus and Haman to dinner that evening. At dinner, she ignored the problem again, but rather invited them both to a second dinner the following evening. It was not that she was softening him up or trying to manipulate him. She was using good wisdom, and most husbands and wives could learn a lesson from Esther about how to speak and when to speak. Grace and tact are the key words in her approach.

God works in unusual ways. On the night between the banquets, Ahasuerus could not sleep. He asked for the record of his reign to be read to him. That would probably put him to sleep when nothing else could. In the record was the story of an assassination plot against him that Mordecai had discovered and exposed, for which act he had never been rewarded (Esth. 6:1-3). That incredible little episode set the scene for the events of the next day.

First, Haman was forced to honor Mordecai for his patriotism. And then it was time for Esther’s second dinner party. As they feasted together, the king said to Esther, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be done,” Esther’s reply was brilliant: “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me as my petition, and my people as my request; for we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed and to be annihilated. Now if we had only been sold as slaves, men and women, I would have remained silent, for the trouble would not be commensurate with the annoyance to the king.” The king was shocked. “Who is he, and where is he, who would presume to do thus?” And Esther put the finger on Haman, much to his horror (Esth. 7:1-6).

The results of that dinner party were awesome. Haman was hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai, and Mordecai was promoted to prime minister of Persia. And while the order to kill the Jews could not be rescinded, they were given permission to defend themselves against their enemies. Over 75,000 of their avowed adversaries were slain and God’s people were delivered. It was nothing less than a miracle! But God loves to perform miracles for people who see themselves as part of His program, who view their circumstances as part of His appointment, and who live to do His will right where they are.

But there is one more thing we should notice in this narrative, and that is a memorial for all time. Both Mordecai and Esther were so grateful to God for His faithfulness that they sent letters to the Jews in all the provinces in Persia instructing them to celebrate the two days of their deliverance every year. They called it the Feast of Purim, from the word Pur, meaning “lot” or “dice.” Haman had cast lots to determine the day the Jews should die (cf. Esth. 3:7; 9:24, 26). God turned it to a day of victory, and they were grateful to Him for deliverance. The Jewish people celebrate the Feast of Purim to this day. It is a lasting memorial to God’s faithfulness.

God is at work in our lives just as definitely and decisively as in Esther’s. Our circumstances may not be all we would like them to be. But we can thank God for them anyway. They provide Him with the opportunity to demonstrate His sovereign love and care, and they provide us with an opportunity to glorify Him. Let us believe that He will work those circumstances together for good, then look for ways to serve Him in them.

Let’s talk it over

1. Why do you think God put the book of Esther in the Bible?

2. Recount some of the problems you have faced in the past that you now realize God has worked out for good.

3. What are the present circumstances in your life that you wish were different? What opportunities to glorify the Lord are provided by these circumstances? How can you serve the Lord in them?

4. How can you help each other handle the trying circumstances of life?

5. What did you learn from the relationship of Ahasuerus and Esther that will profit your relationship with each other?

The tugboat was one of three towing an oil tanker in Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta waters when it gave a sudden lurch and keeled over. It quickly sank 100 feet to the ocean bottom. It was 4:30 a.m., and cook Harrison Odjegba Okene was in the bathroom. He was thrown from one end of the small cubicle to another. All the lights went out. He groped his way out of the toilet and tried to find a way out, propping open doors as he moved on. He discovered some tools, two flashlights and a bottle of Coke.

When he found a cabin of the sunken vessel that felt safe, he began the long wait, getting colder and colder as he played back a mental tape of his life — remembering his mother, friends, mostly the woman he’d married five years before with whom he hadn’t yet fathered a child. He worried about his 11 colleagues; he got really worried when he heard the sound of fish, shark or barracudas he supposed, eating and fighting over something big.

As the temperature dropped to freezing, Okene, dressed only in boxer shorts, recited the last psalm his wife had sent him by text message before he had gone to bed, sometimes called the Prayer for Deliverance: “Oh God, by your name, save me. ... The Lord sustains my life” (Psalm 54:1,4). For 72 hours the Nigerian cook survived by breathing an ever-dwindling supply of oxygen in an air pocket. He begged God for a miracle.

Salvage divers working on the scene had already recovered four bodies and expected to find more. They had TV cameras strapped to their diving helmets and relayed murky images back to the rescue vessel on the surface. So when a hand appeared on the TV screen in the rescue boat, showing what the rescue diver saw, everybody assumed it was another corpse. The diver went to grab the hand, and the hand grabbed him. The rescuer recoiled in shock but soon realized he had found a survivor.

Okene couldn’t have lasted much longer; the air in his small compartment was dwindling rapidly. He was the only survivor. His relatives had already been told that he was dead.

The Nigerian kept faith with the psalm he recited, that promises to “give thanks in your name, Lord,” (Psalm 54:6) by giving his testimony of salvation at a service at his Redeemed Christian Church of God.

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The video of Okene’s rescue can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArWGILmKCqE

Like many of his generation, Master Sgt. Thomas Musselwhite Jr. doesn’t see his World War II military intelligence work as heroic.

But two Hollywood-produced movies have told a much different story of how a reconnaissance team -- Musselwhite was one of its three members -- derailed Japanese advancements while behind enemy lines.

And Musselwhite’s two Bronze Stars and other military honors make the epic storylines all the more believable.

“You did what you had to do,” the 94-year-old Army veteran said while retracing his exploits on a world map spread across his dining room table in Cumming, Ga.

Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen starred in the 1959 film “Never So Few” which recounts, albeit with Hollywood embellishment, how a small U.S. military intelligence group stationed in Burma partnered with about a thousand Burmese Kachins to hold back the advance of 40,000 Japanese soldiers in northern Burma in the early years of World War II.

And “Merrill’s Marauders” in 1962 chronicled how U.S. combat forces, also acting on information provided by the reconnaissance team, drove the Japanese from northern Burma, enabling U.S. Army engineers to build a key road that connected northeastern India with the strategic Burma Road.

Surviving mostly on bamboo shoots, wild bananas and wild rice, Musselwhite’s three-member unit spent about 180 days in enemy territory over the span of five different spy missions.

Musselwhite said he and his two comrades often would hike 30 miles a day through the Burmese jungles, across the treacherous Salween River and 16,000-foot Himalayan mountain range.

A money pouch full of “small bills” helped endear the Americans to the native Nepalese Gurkhas and Burmese Kachins who aided the reconnaissance team’s raids of strategic Japanese ammunition dumps, supply centers and vehicle concentrations. “The money pouch,” as Musselwhite put it, “was one of our best weapons.”

In a letter accompanying his Legion of Merit Medal, Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell credited Musselwhite’s reconnaissance team with providing strategic information that enabled U.S. and Chinese forces to drive the Japanese from northern Burma.

Stilwell wrote that Musselwhite’s missions behind enemy lines helped save at least 200 Allied lives and advanced the war effort by six months.

Although his hearing has greatly diminished over the years, Musselwhite’s memory remains vivid.

When the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, for example, Musselwhite wasn’t entirely surprised.

“We were aware that nuclear weapons had been developed and the war would be over soon when they were used,” said Musselwhite, who provided military security at a biological weapons production facility in Terre Haute, Ind., after returning from overseas deployment.

In the summer of 1944, on the same day he received military orders to return stateside from the war, Musselwhite nearly drowned in a mountain stream under the 150-pound weight of his survival gear before one of his comrades pulled him to safety.

“I thought it was a very shallow stream,” recalled Musselwhite, who also was suffering from malaria at the time. “That was one of the few times, I thought I wasn’t going to make it. That was a bad day.”

Then there was the time he drove a truck with faulty brakes over the side of a mountain on the Burma Road in China. “That was a definite act of God because I should have been gone long years ago,” he said.

Musselwhite grew up attending First Baptist Church in Thomasville, Ga., but it was his near-death experience in China that convinced him of his need for Christ. “Lord, if I ever need You, I need You now,” he said he cried out to God. “I had gone to church all my life, but when I really became a believer I was in China.”

Several years later after returning home from the war, Musselwhite was baptized with his fiancé Ramona -- now wife of 65 years -- at Virginia Avenue Baptist Church in Atlanta. “I’ve been real fortunate,” he said. “She’s been around ever since.”

Musselwhite enlisted in the Army National Guard after graduating from high school and soon found himself on a fast track to wartime deployment in January 1942 at age 19.

A specialist in mortar, rifles and machine gun techniques, he trained hundreds of Chinese soldiers at a training camp in India, about 200 miles from Pakistan.

As Japanese forces advanced across Burma, Musselwhite was transferred to Kunming, China -- the Allied headquarters for Southeast Asia -- where he again trained Chinese officers to use American weapons.

Six months later, when American forces needed information about Japanese war strategy, Musselwhite was appointed to a three-man reconnaissance team to penetrate enemy lines.

When Musselwhite, now a member of First Baptist Church in Cumming, Ga., thinks about the nearly 50 million Allied lives that were given in the bloodiest war in history, he is all the more appreciative of the eternal freedom in Christ he discovered while serving on the battlefield.

“It was always something, but God took care of me alright and I’ve tried to stay out of trouble since then,” he said.

Musselwhite said his marriage, three children, five grandchildren and 30-year career with the U.S. Postal Service, all while living in the greatest country on earth, is better than any movie Hollywood might produce.

“I’ve been real fortunate,” he once again said.