Time-out for Truth

God Helps Those...

Last night, NBC featured a three hour movie event about Hercules. Throughout the movie, Hercules repeatedly declared that he alone would write his destiny, that it was up to him alone to become all the he could, and that he would find a way to become more than just a man. He embodied the phrase we have all heard at one time or another, "God helps those who help themselves." But Hercules was not the embodiment of Christian truth. I hope you will enjoy this article that continues with the ideas expressed in the movie. -- Warren
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Finish the statement: God helps those who …

Aesop once told a fable of a wagoneer from long ago. He was driving his wagon down a muddy lane when the wheels sank so deep in the mire that the horse could no longer pull the load. In that moment, the wagoneer called out to the heavens for help.

Hercules himself appeared, as the fable goes. He said, "Put your shoulder to the wheel, man, and goad on your horse, and then you may call on the gods to assist you. The gods help those who help themselves."

Years later the one true God, Jesus Christ, walked beside those who were themselves stuck in the mire. At every turn, He helped those who were unable to help themselves.

Yet, even today the echo of Hercules resounds with the implied authority of Jesus Christ: "God helps those who help themselves."

Stuck in the mire with a load, the weight of which is beyond measure, we are encouraged to put our shoulder to the wheel and goad the horse on.

Like Milkolka in Dostoevsky's *Crime and Punishment,* in a stupor, we goad our horse on to accomplish the impossible. "God helps those who help themselves!" we declare and push forward with all our might. We yell, shout, whip and beat in an effort to gallop when we can't even move an inch. And in the end, like Milkolka, we beat our horse to death trying to move the unmovable.

"God helps those who help themselves," people say. "For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear," Jesus explains, "and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." (Matthew 23:4)

God does not help those who help themselves. God helps those who cannot help themselves. God helps those who have no hope. God helps those who are stuck in the mire unable to move. God helps those who cannot carry their burden. He exchanges burden for burden – His burden for theirs.

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

God came to the valley, because we were unable to climb the mountain. God loved us, because there was no love within us. God brought salvation to us, because we were incapable of saving ourselves. God helps us, because we are unable to help ourselves.

God helps, even now. God does not wait for us to get bogged down in the mire. Coasting along on a good road with no obstacles in our path, Jesus sits beside us and says, "Can I help you? Will you let me drive? The road ahead is smooth at times, but it also has mires, potholes, and deep ruts. We've got to go through some of that to get were we're going. I'm going to be here no matter what, but if you will let Me, I'd like to take this burden. I would like to take over the reigns and insure the safe delivery of My precious cargo. That precious cargo is you, My child. Can I help you?"

God helps those who cannot help themselves. Will you let Him?

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By Endurance We Conquer

"MEN WANTED for hazardous journey, small wage, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

So read the ad placed in a British paper by Earnest Shackleton. Over 5000 men responded. From sailors to Cambridge educated scientists, they all wanted the chance to join the great captain in an attempt to be the first men to cross Antarctica.

Shackleton and his crew of 27 (including one stowaway) set sail in the fall of 1914 aboard the Endurance. The ship was named after Shackleton's family motto: "By endurance we conquer." He had no idea that the entire expedition would be a proving of that motto.

On December 7, 1914, the Endurance entered pack ice some 300 miles away from Antarctica. As they pushed their way towards the continent, the ice became heavier until they awoke on January 18th, 1915 to the realization that they were trapped. What followed is one of the greatest stories of endurance ever recorded.

The men sat for months trapped aboard the ship. Yet, even when the ice crushed the Endurance, the endurance of the men stood firm. After months of camping on a sheet of ice with temperatures reaching a high of 30 degrees and regularly dipping into the –20's, their endurance remained. When Shackleton finally was able to take one of the lifeboats and attempt an 800-mile journey across the most dangerous sea in the world to get help, the men's endurance would not waiver. From January 18th, 1915 until the entire crew was rescued off of Elephant Island on August 30th, 1916 the endurance of Shackleton's crew conquered the unbearable temperatures and conditions they faced.

When the ship was trapped and crushed, when they spent months in darkness on the frozen ice, when the storms came and the food ran low, it was no surprise. Every man knew that this would be the likely outcome of the expedition. Shackleton's ad had predicted exactly what would happen. The men had chosen from the beginning to endure this fate. Every new hardship merely brought them back to the original ad they had chosen to answer – "safe return doubtful" – and their endurance remained.

When Shackleton assembled his crew, he was upfront and honest with them. He didn't boast of smooth sailing and the praises of man. He laid the foundation upon which he could build a crew that would be able to endure to the end.

Far too often, we get absorbed in the warm and fuzzy verses of the Bible and forget the foundation that Jesus laid. When the storms of life, the months of darkness, and the bitter cold of the world bear down on us, we're shocked. Our endurance falters. We wonder, "Why is this happening to me?"

We have forgotten the ad originally placed when Jesus called us: "And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost…" (Luke 14:27-28) "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you." (John 15:18)

Jesus wants us to understand that the victory He has given us, the hope, the promise and the abundant life occurs on a spiritual and eternal dimension. There is no promise that it will occur in this physical world. He wants us to know that this journey we are on may be composed of "small wage, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger…" But through endurance we conquer and there is "Honour and recognition" in the end.

Therefore, we are encouraged to "…run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. FOR CONSIDER HIM WHO ENDURED SUCH HOSTILITY FROM SINNERS AGAINST HIMSELF, LEST YOU BECOME WEARY AND DISCOURAGED IN YOUR SOULS." (Hebrews 12:1-3, emphasis added)

"By endurance we conquer!"

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The Integrity of Broken Glass

"You want to see my life?" The young woman ardently screamed. Raising a glass vase above her head she said, "This . . . this is my life!" With all her might, she hurled the vase down shattering it upon the floor.

She paused just for a moment staring at Joshua (a character in the movie "Joshua" portraying what Jesus might be like were He to walk the earth today). As Joshua looked at her life shattered all over the floor, she stormed out into the darkness of brokenness.

Few people would claim to be an unblemished vessel. We all have cracks and chips. We do our best to hide the chips and hold the cracks together. Still, we tremble at the touch of others. For we know with the weaknesses in our composition, it would only take one slip of the hand and our life would be shattered glass upon the floor. Our desire is to be displayed in the china cabinet, but somehow we always end up on the kiddie-table with all the other chipped and broken vessels.

In a society of marred vessels, it amazes me the importance we place on integrity. Most people have no idea what it means. Most people think integrity means honesty. Yet, that is only a very small part of having integrity.

Integrity means "the state of being whole." It has the same root as integer – a whole number. Considering this, you can see why we value integrity so highly. It is a very rare quality to be found among cracked pots and marred vessels. So, we tend to overlook cracks and chips and strive to attain a kind of pseudo-integrity. We are not really whole, but just trying to hold on to what we have.

Jostled through the circumstances of life, our integrity takes its share of blows and we are slowly chipped away into smaller and smaller pieces. We grab hold of the largest pieces and try to preserve them. We come to believe that integrity can be measured by the quality of the pieces of our life that we are able to hold together.

Integrity can never be measured in pieces. It is the state of being whole.

Following the scene of the woman breaking the vase, which represented her life, Joshua gives her a special gift. He leaves it with a priest. As the priest presents the gift, he says, "It's amazing how Joshua could make something so beautiful out of thousands of pieces of broken glass." The woman takes the gift. Her eyes fill with tears as she holds the figurine of a beautiful woman. She shakes her head, as if to disagree with the priest. It's not just beauty she is holding, but much more. She finally understands what He desires for her life and says, "Something whole."

Jeremiah was sent to the potter's house to receive a message from the Lord: "Then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make." (Jeremiah 18:3-4)

Here we see a true picture of integrity. It is not found in the restoration of the marred. It is not found in patching up the cracked pots. It is found in brokenness. It is found when the potter takes a marred vessel and makes it again into a new vessel. It is found in broken glass. When the cracked pot is crushed and the pieces are fitted together by the Lord's hand to make something new, something beautiful – no, much more, to make something whole.

Integrity is not taught nor earned. Integrity is not measurable. It either is or it is not. Integrity is the state of being whole. Integrity can only be found when brokenness is formed anew in the potter's hands. Integrity is being in Christ.

Are you walking with integrity today?

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