THE LAST RIVER MILE

Twice a week I spend a good bit of the morning at a favorite coffee shop. It is a faith-based business. They don’t beat you over the head with it, but the good news of Jesus and a positive welcome are very much in the atmosphere. This includes background music. While sipping my latte and doing some writing the other morning, Lauren Daigle’s “I Will Rescue you” was played I’ve heard this tune for years; it’s very encouraging.

Part of the chorus Lauren sings is, “I (God) will send out an army to find you, in the middle of the darkest night, it’s true – I will rescue you.” Immediately my thoughts went to a close friend of ours who is in his darkest night. A blinding, paralyzing combination of illness, isolation, discouragement, and hopelessness defines his every day. He sees no way out, and prayer and determined presence seems all any of us can offer him. In sudden defiance I heard myself blurting out, “Where’s his army?!?” This has been a years-long struggle for him. If the song’s words are true, what’s stalling his army in his darkest night?

Yes, I know all the theories and explanations of unjust suffering and unanswered prayer. I’ve preached and taught many of them. Many are strong, Christ-centered, and biblically sound. But all the theologies and theories are of little value if you’re in your deepest, deadliest valley and your promised army isn’t there.

In the last post I spoke of Holocaust victim Betsie ten Boom, who died at the Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1944. Somehow she had an unshakable faith in the coming army, even though she might not live to see it. Reportedly she thanked God and praised God for the fleas infesting their living quarters, because the vermin kept the guards from wanting the enter the space. This gave the inmates the protection and time to gather around the Bible and worship each evening. Maybe she saw the infestation as the advance guard of the army God was sending. Maybe it was enough for Betsie that God’s army would come for others, even if not for her. I don’t know…

I do know this: If you are in the darkest night, and the good news of the active, transforming presence of a risen Jesus feels like like a far-away, fanciful panacea for others and not for you, then we who claim to be Jesus-followers are not doing it right. If our presence does not feel like the advance guard of an army coming to rescue you, that’s on us; not on you.

We’re not giving up our friend. As weak a vanguard as we may be, we’re determined to hold ground. We will be present, even in the darkest night, no matter how long it lasts. Even when we see no evidence of it, we will cling to a God who rescues.

I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.

(Recommended reading: GOD ON MUTE by Pete Greig.)