Almost everyone in the world knows the story about the “miracle” in Thailand. A youth soccer team (12 boys) and their coach were trapped inside a dangerous and nearly flooded cave for eighteen days, before being rescued by a team of Thai Navy Seals and many others.
It must have been a great moment when the boys and their families finally reunited after this horrible and traumatic ordeal. They had been missing for 10 days before some British divers discovered them and another week or so elapsed, before all of them were able to make it out of the cave.
It took a lot of work and coordination to extricate the team from the nearly flooded cave. The rescue teams installed pumps to flush out the water, expanded some of the narrow cave openings and even installed a 2 mile rope from the entrance of the cave all the way to where the boys were trapped. Even with all of these preparations and precautions, it took an 11 hour round trip to rescue one child at a time.
What do you think it took for God the Father to save our souls? If you said “everything” you are right. The cave rescuers sacrificed themselves (one of them died) to save those boys, but our Father sacrificed his own Son to rescue us from the cave of sin and death. Romans 8:32 teaches that,
“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”
Yes, all of God’s children (Christians) were trapped in a cave of sin and in a pit of desperation and death. We were not only trapped, but there was no possible way out for us, that is, until Jesus came down to earth and rescued us. He,
“…inclined to me, And heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth—Praise to our God” (Psalm 40:1-3).
If you are in a cave of doubt, defeat, guilt, anxiety or depression, get out of that cave immediately! If you can’t, call out to Jesus and He will rescue you. The best thing to do, however, is to avoid pitfalls and caves altogether. We might not be able to avoid all of them, but if we follow Jesus closely and obediently we will avoid many dangers and sins.
A. G.
