Sunday Devotion- The Gang's All Here

Janet Rubin

This photo, taken by photographer Tim Cook, is from our local newspaper, The New London Day. Big doin's in Waterford yesterday. My husband Dave isn't in this photo, but he was somewhere nearby on the scene, dressed just like these firemen and doing what they were doing-- helping to evacuate one hundred residents from a local nursing home after someone called police threatening to bomb the home. While police with bomb-sniffing dogs searched the nursing home, firemen and other volunteers used every available ambulance, some vans, and even school buses to move the elderly people, along with their walkers, wheelchairs, and oxygen tanks to nearby St. Paul's church.

It was hours before the displaced people were allowed to return. In the meantime, Day staff writer Julie Wernau says they, "crowded around cafeteria-style tables, singing “Hail, hail, the gang's all here” while they waited for the pizza to arrive."

When my husband came home, he said the people were wonderful-- appreciative of the workers' efforts, in good spirits, more or less enjoying the "adventure." When the residents were finally allowed to return home, Dave loaded his pick-up truck with walkers and helped get everything back.

So why would someone threaten to bomb a nursing home of all places? The list of truly safe places is shrinking fast. Work, school, home... shootings, bombings, tornadoes. Life on earth is dangerous. As I look for a lesson in yesterday's incident, I see some lessons we can learn from three things the threatened people did: 1.They ran away to church, 2.they sang together, and 3.they waited.

Just as the world isn't physically safe, it isn't spiritually safe. There is an enemy who threatens us, and his bomb of choice is often temptation. Like a ticking bomb, Satan plops temptation in front of us and waits to see what we'll do. If we stay where we are, that bomb may go off in an explosion of sin that will hurt us and those around us.

Fortunatly, God has an evacuation plan all laid out for us in the Bible. Interesting that the elderly people took refuge at St. Paul's; Paul wrote the verse I'm thinking of:

1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

"He will provide a way out." The reason that the nursing home staff and town workers were able to deal so well with the bomb scare was that they had a plan. They knew they were going to St. Paul's, they knew how to get there, they'd practiced with drills on many occasions. So what's our plan?

We too can run away to church. Maybe literally to a church building where we can hear the Word and pray, or perhaps to brothers or sisters in Christ who are the church and who can pray with and encourage us, or better yet, to Jesus who is the Head of the church. And we can sing, reminding ourselves that joy comes in having intimacy with God, confessing that He is our strength when we are weak, and lifting our hands so He can deliver us. And we can wait. Our Savior will come to our rescue. James 4:7 says, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

The main point is that we need to evacuate when temptation threatens to draw us into sin. If we cry out to Jesus, He'll show up, like a strong fireman leading us to safety.

Lord, When your disciples asked you to teach them to pray, the prayer you taught them included these lines: "and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." We acknowledge that there is an enemy who wants to destroy us. But we also proclaim that You are far more powerful than that enemy. Help us to listen to you when temptation comes, to follow you when You come to show us the way out and bring us somewhere safe. Thank You that one day we will arrive at an eternally safe home where we will sing something like "The gang's all here," and dine on something even better than pizza. Amen.