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Biography
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"What to Do When You are Between a Rock and a Hard Place" It seems like a lot of us are there. If you caught the June issue of Time Magazine, the cover story was: Stress, the quiet killer. In that article it was noted that the detrimental affects of stress upon our health sometimes are lethal affects. In recent research it has been documented that six leading causes of death in the United States can be traced, at least in a contributing factor, to stress — everything from heart disease, to lung ailments, to cancer. The American Academy of Family Physicians submits that two-thirds of the office visits come to them out of stress-related symptoms. And I think it is no accident that the leading drugs in our country are Tagamet, an ulcer medication; Inderal, a hypertension drug; and of course, the popular Valium, a tranquilizer. It would appear that either our lifestyle is too crowded, or our coping mechanisms are just not very sophisticated, or more likely — a combination of the two. Stress — we medicate it or we drink it into oblivion. We take it out on those who are closest to us, whom we love, or we take it out on our own bodies. It hardly seems that this would be God’s design for our lives. So what do you do when you find yourself between a rock and a hard place? Is that where you are tonight? Is it? Well, if it is, I want you to know that there is a word from the Lord for you tonight because that is exactly where the Israelites found themselves in this scripture passage (Exodus 14:10-22), cornered between the armies of Pharaoh sweeping down upon them and the sea — nowhere to go and no place to turn. Yet it was there that God met them. He met them there in a way more powerful than they had ever known or ever expected. And I want you to know that no matter who you are or where you are or how impossible is your predicament tonight, God wants to meet you between that rock and that hard place that you are experiencing. I know a man with a lovely family, a loving wife, two children. He has a successful business life. He is active in his community and his church. He is the kind of guy you like right away: positive, encouraging. Well, one day he goes in for a routine medical check-up, and before he knows it, he is in the hospital. Test follows painful test and finally the results come back confirming his worst suspicions. Cancer has spread to some vital organs and his future looks uncertain. Virtually overnight the man’s life changed. He is caught between a rock and a hard place — between the shock of confronting his own mortality and worrying about his wife and his children and how they are going to cope if the worst scenario plays itself out. He believes in a God who leads. What now? Well, those hapless Hebrews must have been asking the same questions as they looked back over their shoulders and saw the dust kicking up on the horizon and heard the thunder of hoofs and the clatter of chariots and sabers. And they turned around looking for a way of escape and they saw nothing but a vast sea stretching before them. God had led them here, or so they had thought. But now? For what purpose? They couldn’t see it. And the people cried out to the Lord and said to Moses (I love that phrase — it happens to a minister so often: the people cry out to the Lord but they say to Moses — they say to the minister), “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you led us out here to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, Moses?” In a whole different area of life, a business man comes to see me. He is the picture of corporate success — well groomed to perfection, articulate in speech, confident in manner. But boxed up inside that veneer of confidence rage a legion of insecurities. He is a person who has turned his life over to God’s leading, who has believed that he is where he is because for some reason God has wanted him there. But now things aren’t going so well. Sales are down. Personnel problems. It seems like he is going about all over the place stamping out fires. And he’s scared. Clouds of impending failure are seen on the horizon, and he awakens every morning with a dread in his stomach, and it is getting harder and harder to get out of bed. He is caught between a rock and a hard place, between Pharoah’s armies and the sea, and he doesn’t know what to do, and he cries out to the Lord, “Lord, why have you led me out here to die in the wilderness?” A third drama of life, a familiar scenario (too familiar, really) is a woman of 35, a mother of three. She finds herself at the end of ten years of marriage with a dissolved relationship. She looks out at that vast sea that stretches before her — of job interviews that have to be done, and loneliness, and children that need to be cared for, and she feels caught. It seems overwhelming to her — what does she do? This is the drama of life. We live with it We see it. What do you do when you are between a rock and a hard place? Many of you are there tonight and yes, God has a word for you and for me. Because those Hebrews suffered from fearing that God had forsaken them, that they had taken the wrong path, the wrong exit on that freeway coming out of Goshen, and God wasn’t with them anymore. But God was waiting for them precisely there, and he is with you now in your distress. And he has two words for you actually, and although they were spoken ages ago, they are tailored specifically for you, specifically for your situation, and specifically for this time in your life. Listen to them: “And the people said to the Lord and cried to Moses .... And Moses said, ‘Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation which the Lord will work for you today.’” The word is a word of trust, and yet strangely enough the second word seems to be contradictory to the first. They seem to be mutually exclusive, and it’s hard not to catch the humor here. Moses says to the people, “Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” The Lord says to Moses, “Why are you crying to me? Tell the people to move forward.” Ken Taylor in his Living Bible Paraphrase had a stroke of genius at this point because he catches the humor here and he translates this latter word, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Quit praying and get the people moving! Forward march!’” A great paraphrase. Now, isn’t this classic double talk? Moses says, “Stand still,” and the Lord says, “Get moving.” Let me rather suggest that in these two words there is logic beyond the illogic and there is sense beyond the nonsense. And in fact in these two words is found the balance of the Christian life, the paradox of Christian living.
You remember that gospel hymn? The trust we are talking about is not a namby-pamby, milk toast, passive helplessness. No. It is a tough trust. It is a gutsy faith. It is a faith that can look into even the jaws of death itself and say, as Job did of the Lord, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” What does it mean to trust God when you are caught between a rock and a hard place? What does it mean? When you have no place to go and no escape? Well, if the Bible defines faith as the conviction of things not seen, then this tough trust is to look into the dark unknown, and dare to believe that God is waiting for you in the darkness. Dare to believe it. It is difficult to trust God like that without Jesus Christ. Dr. Nathan Pusey, the former President of Harvard University, was the one who said, “In the depth of every mystery, Jesus put a face” It is difficult to trust a God who has not revealed himself as flesh and blood and personality that we can see and come to relate with. A friend, he will be there for you, this God who is made known in Jesus, if even for a time he is silent. Sometimes it seems his silences last forever when life has hemmed us in and the stress of life has blinded us from our vision of God, and our fears have turned our faith stone cold. And yet in those silences the most creative work of the spirit can happen because in those silences God gives us the means of grace that our faith may go on, handles of faith to get a hold of it. What are those handles of faith? Four years ago a beloved colleague of mine succumbed to cancer. In the eighteen months of her struggle, I think I learned more about what it means to have tough trust than I had before or have since. What are the handles of faith that she got a hold of in the Bible? I still remember going up to her apartment on the Near North Side of Chicago in a highrise, coming into her room. She was in her bed, quite ill. She was on the phone at the time, and I looked around her room and my eyes fell upon her dresser where there was a card. And on that card was printed a verse from the Bible, the 4th chapter of Philippians. I still remember it as if it happened yesterday. “Have no anxiety about anything; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.” She got off the phone, and I said, “I like your Bible verse.” She smiled an uncomfortable smile, and she said, “You know, that is what keeps me going, gets me out of bed, gets me going in the day, and when my mind begins to wander into the future and I begin to get scared, I pick up that card and I read it and it’s like the hand of a friend reaching out to you. The hand of God meets me there and I know life is worth living.” Tough trust. Tough trust. Fear not. Stand firm.. And see the salvation which the Lord will work for you this day. The second means of grace, the handle of faith to grasp in the night of our distress, is the prayer of thanksgiving. I know of no more powerful expression of trust in God than in the midst of a hopeless situation to give thanks to him by faith. This is not a thanksgiving for blessings received that we can see. It is not a thanksgiving as some prescribe for the adversity itself. No — it is the giving of thanks to God ahead of time for salvation which we cannot yet see. Faith is the conviction of things not seen. And there is victory there. There is power there. To stand firm and defy those fears that bear down upon us like those chariots in the night. Dare to believe in a God who has not yet played the last card. But there is one thing more when we find ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place, and that is to be ready to obey. Be ready to obey when the silence is broken and when we get a word of direction because the word that we get, and I’m sure you have experienced this as have I, is often not the word we expect or perhaps the word that we want. I would love to see some of the out-takes from this scene between the Lord and Moses, wouldn’t you? The Lord says, “Quit praying and get moving.” And Moses says, “But, Lord, you don’t see there is a sea down there and we can’t swim. There are no lakes in Goshen, and if you had only warned us, we could have practiced and learned, and we’d go; but, Lord, down there?” “Moses, why do you come crying to me? Tell the people to move forward.” “But, Lord, you don’t understand. It makes no sense. It’s futile.” “Moses, did I ever tell you that I would make sense to you?” When the Lord says in effect, “Quit praying and get moving — forward march,” he is telling us there is always a next step with God. Tonight, my friend, you may be in a predicament that is utterly hopeless, or so you think. You may be facing tomorrow the termination of your job, you may be facing the dissolution of your marriage, you may be caught in some uncontrollable habit of drinking, or overeating, or whatever it is that you can’t shake. Perhaps it is the crumbling of your faith or the deterioration of your health. You may be looking into the darkness of death itself. But let me tell you this, with God there is always a next step. Listen for that next step. Will you listen for it? Look for it. Look for it in the obvious things. There are some things so simple, so obvious that God has for you to do but you haven’t done it yet. You thought about it; you prayed about it; but you haven’t done it yet. But it is just one step, and with that one step the next step will be revealed. Perhaps it’s something as simple as going back to church where you might find a word of direction, or reading the Bible again, taking it off your shelves. You can start that tonight. Perhaps you have been rationalizing your drinking problem for years and you've been praying about it. But the Lord is saying to you, “It’s time to quit praying and it’s time to move forward, and go out in the kitchen and get those bottles and throw them away.” Perhaps you are in a relationship that you know is unhealthy. It’s not good. It’s not right. And it’s making you miserable. You’ve prayed about it. You’ve asked for help. Maybe it’s time to quit praying and to get moving. It’s only when we get moving and take that step, will the waters part. But then indeed the waters will part and we can get on with the lives that God has planned for us as we walk on in trust. Trust and obey. And that is the joy and the adventure of the Christian life, my friend. When we are caught between a rock and a hard place, and we are surprised to find God there — the God who is there to meet us. And we find that all we have left perhaps is him — no other option. Then, and only then, can we know that God is enough.
May God bless you tonight. Amen. |
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