My room was dark as midnight before seven. I fought sleep as I lounged across my bed, knees folded to hide the light from my phone screen while I read through my daily Bible reading plan. My four grandchildren slept soundly in their respective places as my daughter, in the adjoining room, brewed us decaf lattes. My son and his wife had helped settle their two for the night before heading out for a dinner date. Not half an hour after they left, the fire alarm sounded.
Being in an unfamiliar place, the sound didn’t register right away. I checked on each of the children in turn while searching the for source of the noise. Illuminated solely by the light from my phone screen, I made out a white panel high above my bed that looked for all the world like an intercom except for the tiny hieroglyph of a man running and a red flame. I ducked into my daughter’s room to find her peering out the door into the hallway. I motioned to the same intercom above her bed and she nodded. “People are headed for the stairwell,” she whispered.
I still don’t know how four small children slept through the shrill continuous pulsating noise. Five hours in the water park had exhausted them and not one of them even budged. “What do we do?” Caroline questioned. “It’s probably a false alarm. Hopefully it will stop shortly,” I replied.
Two more minutes passed before I hauled the double stroller out from behind the sleeper sofa and hoisted a still groggy Ezra from his mattress on the floor and deposited his drooping form into the front seat. A very pregnant Caroline heaved Thomas up from his bunk while I lifted Amelia and tucked her into the space between the standing step and the seat. Caroline propped the door open while I brought Timothy to his seat in back and we started down the now empty corridor, siren still blaring obnoxiously in the background.
We abandoned the stroller in the stairwell and I shouldered Timothy and Ezra while Caroline led Thomas and Amelia by the hand down four flights of stairs. We largely collapsed in a heap on a patch of grass in the parking area clear of the building and waited. The all clear came less than ten minutes later and we took the elevator up, tucked four babies back into their beds and sat, thanking Jesus and catching our breath, while they found their way back to sleep. When my son and his wife returned, Jacob innocently asked if we had heard the fire trucks pass earlier and if the sirens had wakened the kids. Only Thomas and Amelia even remembered what happened by morning.
No doubt someone either inadvertently triggered a smoke detector or more likely an unattended child thought it would be a good prank to see what would happen if they pulled a fire alert lever. We felt less panic than frustration under the circumstances but we were taking no chances with the four precious lives in our care. We were inconvenienced, sure, but had there been a real emergency, we would not have thought twice about the possessions we had left behind. When we take seriously the charge of Christ, our priorities must necessarily align with the heart of our good, good Father.
“The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
2 Peter 3:9 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/2pe.3.9.NET
From the time God miraculously brought the descendants of Jacob out of slavery in Egypt, they continually resisted His lordship. They grumbled and complained about the timing of His provision and their impatience led them to worship lifeless statues carved of wood and stone. The prophet Isaiah addressed the nation after generations of loathsome kings and priests had perverted justice and so misled the people that the promised destruction and captivity as a result of their continued disobedience was imminent. God’s message exposed the dangers of relying on anyone and everyone except the One who has the power to save. We should also consider ourselves warned.
“For a fool speaks disgraceful things; his mind plans out sinful deeds.
He commits godless deeds and says misleading things about the Lord;
he gives the hungry nothing to satisfy their appetite and gives the thirsty nothing to drink.”
Isaiah 32:6 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/isa.32.6.NET
The leaders charged with shepherding God’s people misled them. Whether pride or greed motivated them mattered little because their enemies were just as fickle. A bribe guaranteed justice was miscarried. Wealth bought an army to defend against an enemy on one border and then the allied troops turned on them. Anything that seemed to offer hope apart from God failed miserably. Isaiah defines a fool as godless, one who speaks and acts disgracefully, saying misleading things about the Lord. They offer food and drink but nothing that satisfies. God forbid.
“Now listen to what the Lord has to say, you descendants of Jacob, all you family groups from the nation of Israel.
This is what the Lord says: “What fault could your ancestors have possibly found in me that they strayed so far from me?
They paid allegiance to worthless idols, and so became worthless to me.
They did not ask: ‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt, who brought us through the wilderness, through a land of desert sands and rift valleys, through a land of drought and deep darkness, through a land in which no one travels, and where no one lives?’
I brought you into a fertile land so you could enjoy its fruits and its rich bounty.
But when you entered my land, you defiled it; you made the land I call my own loathsome to me.
Your priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’
Those responsible for teaching my law did not really know me.
Your rulers rebelled against me.
Your prophets prophesied in the name of the god Baal.
They all worshiped idols that could not help them.
“So, once more I will state my case against you,” says the Lord. “I will also state it against your children and grandchildren.
Go west across the sea to the coasts of Cyprus and see.
Send someone east to Kedar and have them look carefully.
See if such a thing as this has ever happened: Has a nation ever changed its gods (even though they are not really gods at all)?
But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, for a god that cannot help them at all!
Be amazed at this, O heavens!
Be shocked and utterly dumbfounded,” says the Lord.
“Do so because my people have committed a double wrong: they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water, and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”
You have brought all this on yourself, Israel, by deserting the Lord your God when he was leading you along the right path.
Your own wickedness will bring about your punishment.
Your unfaithful acts will bring down discipline on you.
Know, then, and realize how utterly harmful it was for you to reject me, the Lord you’re God, to show no respect for me,” says the Lord God who rules over all.”
Jeremiah 2:4-13, 17, 19 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/jer.2.4-19.NET
God is infinitely patient but He is also entirely just. He loves faithfully so He warns and warns and warns again. Peter, who said that it is not God’s will that anyone should perish but that all should come to repentance was quick to remind his readers of the flood in Noah’s time. There is coming a final day of judgement. Many live ignorant of it. Others try to ignore it, either by putting off what is of first importance or by denying its reality. Even Jesus spoke about the time of the end.
“As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Jesus answered them, “Watch out that no one misleads you.
For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will mislead many.
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.
Make sure that you are not alarmed, for this must happen, but the end is still to come.
For nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
And there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
All these things are the beginning of birth pains.
Then they will hand you over to be persecuted and will kill you.
You will be hated by all the nations because of my name.
Then many will be led into sin, and they will betray one another and hate one another.
And many false prophets will appear and deceive many, and because lawlessness will increase so much, the love of many will grow cold.
But the person who endures to the end will be saved.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole inhabited earth as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
Matthew 24:3-14 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/mat.24.14.NET
When the fire alarm sounded in my hotel room, my only thought was of my children and my grandchildren who were soundly sleeping. Their safety depended on me. The same could be said of all those lost and dying apart from Christ, the ones God has placed within my sphere of influence. Will it always be convenient to reach out to them? It will cost me something, sure, but Jesus gave everything so that I could know Him. Will I be frustrated by rejection? Guaranteed. Jesus came to His own and they neither recognized nor received Him. (John 1:10-11)
““If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own.
However, because you do not belong to the world, but I chose you out of the world, for this reason the world hates you.”
John 15:18-19 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/jhn.15.18-19.NET
““I give you a new commandment – to love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples – if you have love for one another.””
John 13:34-35 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/jhn.13.34-35.NET
When I leaned my back against the door to exit the stairwell with one thirty-ish pound two year old on each hip, several people rushed forward to hold the door. They offered what they could at the time to meet my obvious need. Sometimes obeying God’s command and loving like Jesus is as simple as that but not always. Sometimes it’s tough love and can be easily misunderstood. Still we are called to heed all of Jesus’s commands.
“Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own?
Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while there is a beam in your own?
You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Matthew 7:3-5 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/mat.7.3-5.NET
I once read that we must allow people to rely on us until they learn to rely on Jesus. This can be a tricky process, much like moving four sleeping toddlers from a fourth floor hotel room to ground level without using the elevator. I must remember, above all else, that I am not their Savior, and I must fully rely on the only One who is- Jesus. He alone truly satisfies.
“For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread all the time!”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life.
The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
John 6:33-35 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/jhn.6.33-35.NET
“Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again.
But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.””
John 4:13-14 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/jhn.4.13-14.NET
Turn It To Praise ~Seph Schleuter https://youtu.be/ex4jW221RDo?si=IAbmgJIu8FTCoH-M
*My Daily Bible Reading Plan:
Read the Bible: Deuteronomy 4, Psalms 86-87, Isaiah 32, Revelation 2
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