It was several years ago now, but that last earthquake in Haiti; I think the images of that quake will be with us for a long time. For a while there they were looking for any hope they could get, because it was just all about so much death and disaster. You remember that when it seemed that no one else could still be alive in all those collapsed buildings, a boy thought he heard a voice from the rubble of a bank building. The husband of a woman who worked there had been frantically trying to find his wife. When the boy told that man about what he had heard, that husband went for a nearby rescue team from California.
And they found her! Buried deep in there, and they found her singing. Over a week after that quake leveled much of Port-au-Prince, a woman was still alive. And when she wasn't singing, they said she was praying, "Jesus, help me! Jesus, help me!" And when they brought out this miracle lady, yep, she just kept singing. Actually loudly, the rescuers said.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Singing in the Rubble."
Again, that defiant quakeproof faith was on display for all the world to see. That's a faith rooted in a man named Jesus, who has sustained His children through life and through death across the centuries.
I know this Jesus, too. My prayer is that I, too, can hold Him so tightly in my personal quakes that I also can sing in the rubble, because nothing validates the reality of a living Savior more than having His peace when your world's come down around you. Because that's when all eyes are on you.
Our word for today from the word of God is about God's first century ambassadors, Paul and Silas, and it's found in Acts 16:25. (By the way, there's an earthquake here.) They had been brutally beaten, unjustly imprisoned and locked up in stocks. But it says, "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them." That was right before a violent earthquake that actually helped liberate Paul and Silas and drove their jailer to ask them how to know the Jesus who gave them songs at midnight.
This is the peace that Jesus promised to His friends the night He was going to be arrested; the night their world would collapse. He said, "Peace I leave with you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." "I have told you these things so that in Me you might have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 14:27; 16:33).
If you have this Jesus, you can have this peace, even when there seems to be no reason. In the Bible's words, "The peace of God...transcends all understanding" (Philippians 4:7). One Haitian rescued from a collapsed school was asked what he was saying to himself in those long hours when he didn't know if he would live or die. He said, "As a Christian, I'm saying, 'Jesus, my life is in Your hands.'"
I wonder if you could say that, that you've placed your life in the hands of Jesus? There comes a time when we realize that all the places we've looked for answers haven't answered our questions, and all the places we've looked for love and satisfaction have left us empty and disappointed. It's at a point like that that we find our way to the cross where Jesus died to bring us together with God by paying for our sin that keeps us from God.
I still remember the moment when I said, "Jesus, I'm Yours." Do you have a moment like that? If you haven't, let this day be that one for you. Let this be the day you say, "Jesus, I want to pin all my hopes on You" so that you can begin to have the peace that withstands every quake you ever face.
You want to know more about how to begin this relationship with Him? Please go to our website. It's why it's there. It's ANewStory.com.
Our kids used to go to sleep singing a little chorus that says, "Safe am I, safe am I, in the hollow of His hands." You know living or dying, working or out of work, healthy or deathly sick, loved or all alone, if you belong to Jesus, you really are safe.
I pray that God will give you and me the grace to sing in the rubble.