This is a story of nine miners who spent about three days trapped 240 feet underground in Pennsylvania. They had accidentally breached the wall of an old abandoned mineshaft filled with millions of gallons of water, and we thought they were thinking they would never again see the light of day. But we were wrong because these men never gave up on hope. They weren’t trapped in the ground. They were trapped by hope.
An editorial in a Mississippi newspaper put it this way: “teamwork and hope helped to save the nine trapped miners in Pennsylvania”. At one point, the CNN reporter on the scene remarked, “There’s a lot of hope here.” And the pastor of two of the families who had relatives trapped in the mine, Reverend Glenn Sadler, said they were living “totally in hope”.
Hope is what brought them through, and that same Hope will see you through. Hope is what kept them together. Hope is the face of very long odds. Hope is ugly made beautiful. When you HOPE you know you are not alone.
The rescue team made use of the best equipment available. They brought in the most experienced and knowledgeable people. But from the very beginning, the likelihood of bringing up all nine miners, alive and healthy, was very small. Many things could have gone wrong, and did go wrong. At one point the drill bit being used to create the rescue shaft broke; it took eighteen hours to bring out the pieces and start again. The system for pumping in pressurized air, which proved key to their survival, had never been tried before. The miners were at risk of developing hypothermia (a condition of having very low body temperature) from the cold water; they were also at risk of getting the “bends” from breathing the pressurized air. But most seriously, the rescuers had no certain knowledge of where the men even were. They had no way of communicating with them, no way of determining exactly where in the maze of underground tunnels they had gone to escape the rising waters. And so the location of the air pocket where they had gathered was a matter of informed guesswork. David Hess, the state secretary of environmental protection, called it a “one in a million shot” that the six-inch airshaft they drilled would hit the precise spot where the men were located. God will locate you.
I mention this incident because there are many people today who feel like those miners. Trapped, isolated, lost, suffering, and fearful of the future. I know I write to some people who feel abandoned by God, who wonder if God really cares, or even sees, what they are going through. I write to people who are on the verge of giving up. Many people today feel trapped in a marriage that seems hopelessly unfulfilling. Tied to a marriage partner who seems incapable of positive change; a husband or wife who is completely self-absorbed and unwilling to make even the smallest effort to meet their needs. In their mind, they face, not death by drowning, but a living death of emotional suffocation. Or perhaps they feel trapped in a dead-end job or an unrewarding career.
You may be going through a season of suffering, as did those miners, not knowing if you will ever experience relief, peace and happiness. Perhaps it is physical pain, from arthritis, or migraine headaches, or cancer, or malaria and typhoid, or a thousand other ailments. Or perhaps it is an emotional pain, from an abusive childhood or destructive life experiences. Painful memories. Missed opportunities. Mistakes. Regrets. Things said and done, which cannot be unsaid and undone. Fears. Anxieties. Worries. Suffering that no one else can truly understand. And through it all you sit still wondering where God is and if He sees what life is doing to you? If He does, why then has He refused to act?
If any of that is you, there is good news. God does see (Heb 4: 13). He does care (1 Pet 5: 7) and He will see you through (Is 58: 11). He will lift the cloud of despair and will give you His peace. He is a God that never fails and our Hope in Him will not disappoint us (Ps 146) because He can never ever forsake those that are His (Ps 37: 25). Just like the miners never gave up and were rescued, don’t give up too. Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning (Ps 30: 5). I know God is busy sorting you out. Remember when you hope, you are not alone. He is with you.
The Potters Touch 