Several years
ago, I watched a movie about a group of astronauts who were on an expedition to Mars. While there, they discovered an alien species
intent upon sharing some bit of pertinent information with them.
There was some sort of an apparatus into which the aliens were enticing
them to enter. The leader of the troop chose to trust. Stepping in, he found himself immediately “trapped” as doors
shut around him and the space he was in began filling with fluid. He was quickly in over his head, frantically
searching for some way of escape. The
moment came when he could no longer hold his breath, and with a look of
resignation, he closed his eyes and exhaled. A few seconds later, his eyes opened in
surprise, for he realized he could, in fact, breath in this particular
fluid. Then the Martians were able to
reveal things to him of his origins and his creator and prepare him for
unimaginable other-worldly feats. The
movie took on a decidedly political and evolutional flavor from then on, but I
was struck by what the writers of the script might not even have realized were spiritual truths.
We learn early on that we have to look out for ourselves. "Don’t be too
quick to trust!" Survival and
self-sufficiency become ways of life which, ironically, sap life from us. We are only free to move within the confines
of our abilities to control our surroundings, circumstances, and outcomes. Yet God’s love for us runs so deeply, and his
desire to be known by us is so great that he’ll orchestrate the happenings of
our lives in such ways that we’ll find ourselves in those situations that are
beyond our ability to control. We find
ourselves in over our heads, wearing ourselves out with futile attempts to
survive, until we can no longer hold our breaths. And we give up, resigning ourselves to the
inevitable. But God says, “You’re
blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.
With less of you, there is more of [me] and [my] rule. You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what
is most dear to you. Only then can you
be embraced by the one most dear to you.”
He says to us, “Breathe!” And we
find we can do that which we didn’t imagine possible; we begin to truly
understand who our Creator is, and he shows us who we are; and it becomes our
delight to cultivate that love relationship with him. Prep work is done for extraordinary feats
beyond our wildest imagination. May you
be reminded today of how much God is for you.
He sees beyond what you’ve done, what you do, where you’ve been, and
where you are to who it is he knows you to be.
