Stopping the Glow
One of Luther’s favorite hobbies was taking long hikes in the canyons a few hundred miles southwest of where he was born. Always being a person who loved adventure, he would venture out into this vast and deserted land exploring every nook and cranny he could find. But his favorite part was sitting on a canyon’s edge and watching the sun go down. He would sometimes spend days out in the wilderness.
Another additional side effect of these long jaunts in the wilderness was learning handy survival techniques. During storms he found caves to seek protection. In the intense heat of summer, he found shelter hidden in the limited plant material. His hunger could find relief in treats that were found in the most unlikely of places. The secret hiding spots, where water laid, would whisper their location in his ears. Wild animals were no match for his primitive weapons, quick exits into the shadows of the caves or his ability to hide his tracks and his scent.
As much as he enjoyed his adventures, he always enjoyed coming home to the comforts of his modern home in the city. A long steamy shower was always the first pleasure Luther enjoyed when he arrived back home. He also liked the fine restaurants that dotted the streets near his apartment. He worked hard to get where he was in life and he intended to use the fruits of his labor.
Luther had risen up through the ranks of his company and he was known throughout the industry for getting things done. He was also known as a political power broker. Many encouraged him to run for office because he was popular with the corporate people and the everyday man, but he preferred to be the person of influence rather than one relying on people like him to get their power. Still, he was popular inside and outside the business community. You might say his treasure chest was full of gold. He was in want of nothing. But Luther loved people and had a compassion for those less fortunate than he was.
This future President’s father was an extremely hard worker. He wanted his children, his wife and himself to have a better life. One of the biggest motivators of hard work is that distant dream that your world will be a much better place because of that hard work. The farming life seem to be the route most people chose to take at this time in our history. His dad was no different. His father also decided to open a little store. But both his parents realized that education was the pathway for their children to experience the best life had to offer. That education started by teaching their children the love of reading.
Farming was hard work. Add running a store into the mix and soon those dreams lose some of their luster. Surely life had a better offer for the son of this hard worker. The son decided to leave the farm and head off to college and a better life. Here he excelled in school and in college. He then decided he wanted to go to a military academy. Being interested in a military academy was one thing, getting in one was a completely different thing though. Once he was admitted he proved up to the task. He would finish in the top 10% of his class.
Some of the stories in the Bible get told over and over again. Some gain the attention of little children and everyone loves watching children as they hear them told. What makes one of these stories such an interest to children? I think one of the biggest things that catches the child’s attention is the role of an underdog. The whole world is against the seemingly unlikely prospect. Throw in a few obstacles that would stop most people and you can see the platform for a hero being built right in front of your eyes. Using right verses wrong, fair verses unfair, dark verses light, and good verses evil would add the twist and turns that would hold a child’s attention.
Such is the case of this Bible story that has been told over and over again. In fact, I’ve been told that almost all cultures have some version of this story. It begins with a very evil world, with the exception of this one family. God looks down on the earth and sees all the evil. God is not very happy about what he sees. He is so upset that He is thinking about wiping out all mankind and just starting all over again. He turns and He notices a family, a good family, just outside of town. Maybe God can use this little family to restructure the world.
Here lives our hero, he just doesn’t know he is a hero yet. He probably has a little wood shop out back to make all the farming equipment he needs to run his farm. The house he lives in, like the shed he works out of, were probably build with his own hands. He has three sons, all of whom are married, so he probably helped them build their own houses, too. Yeah, there probably wasn’t any construction project he couldn’t handle. Little did he know that God had such great plans for his talent.
One by one the boards came together. Before he knew it there was a massive structure right in front of him. The neighbors thought he was nuts, yet they never once stopped selling him stuff to put into his project. As he looked off in the distance he could see some storm clouds forming. Their blackness stretched across the whole horizon, but they seemed to just sit off in the distance like they were waiting for something.
Then he starting gathering animals in what could possibly be taken as the first zoo. But the animals were not kept out in the fields to live like they did in the wild. No, he guided them all into the structure he built. Now his neighbors were really curious. “Maybe he is going to charge admission,” could have been one of the comments from one of those making fun of him.
Then one day Noah brought his family into this structure that we call an ark. To the surprise of all the neighbors, he closed the huge doors through which all the animal kingdom entered. “What is that nut doing now?” seemed to be the question on everyone’s mind. Then, just like it was a choreographed production, the clouds left the horizon and covered their whole world. Drop by drop each of the neighbors didn’t realize what was happening until it was much too late. Noah’s structure lifted up as the water found nowhere to drain. One by one each of the neighbors breathed their last breath underwater. All that was left was Noah, his family and the animals he had on his ark.
Sometimes it is impossible to comprehend the possibility our lives could be disrupted by violence and turmoil. Luther never thought that was possible. He would raise his voice to the cheering crowds and express himself without reservation. The government, he claimed, needed to look out for all people not just the ones like him. The problem was that people like him were getting richer and richer at the expense of all the others who were getting poorer and poorer. Luther knew it would not be too long before the whole country would fall apart. A government cannot long survive once class warfare starts. Such was the case in Luther’s homeland.
Soon Luther’s very life was being sought. Those with money tried harder and harder to suppress those who worked so hard yet never seemed to be able to get ahead. Luther would be forced to flee where he knew he could survive, the place where he sat on the canyon’s edge. People tried to track him down, but his survival skills were too great for them. As the violence of his countrymen exploded, he prayed that God would make his country livable once again.
After years of fighting, word reached Luther that the battle for his country was over. The peasants, the working man, had retaken the land they had claimed hundreds of years before. Luther’s eyes were now wide open and the people relied on his help to rebuild their and his land.
Jimmy Carter would leave his father’s farm and store and would eventually end up at the Naval Academy where he would graduate in the top ten percent of his class. He would sign up for the newly started nuclear submarine program. As an officer aboard one of these subs he had to learn everything about the submarine, every nut and bolt. Always being a real go getter in everything he tried, he took the task very seriously and excelled.
In 1952, an accident destroyed a “heavy water” nuclear power plant on the Chalk River in Canada. With the reactor meltdown and hydrogen explosions, Captain Rickover volunteered one of his nuclear submarine crews, led by Jimmy Carter, to assist with the disassembly. It was estimated that, even with protective clothing, each person could spend a maximum of ninety seconds of exposure. So Carter and his men practiced and practiced and practiced some more, until they locked down their precision. It was such a great success that the Chalk River reactor was able to go back on-line several years later.
In Pennsylvania, in 1979, the United States suffered its worst nuclear power plant accident ever at the Three Mile Island Power Plant. The coolant system had “failed because of human error, and the reactor core melted, causing the overheating of cooling water and a buildup of high-pressure steam in the reactor container,” a then President Jimmy Carter would recall. He advised the governor to remove some of the children and the pregnant women who were nearby. Afterwards he ask Admiral Rickover, his former commander, to advise a panel to put in place better safety measures. With the knowledge he obtained in his past and his calm nature in the midst of a crisis, Jimmy Carter lead us through that disaster without a single loss of life.
Sometimes the hardest thing for us to do is to train for what God has in store for our lives. Training is not romantic. Waving the sword in battle and leading the charge, now that’s romantic. The simple truth of the matter is that whether God’s task for you is in the spotlight or not, He has to get you ready for it and that involves His training. That training comes not only through education, but often through trials and misfortune. It might come through something we enjoy, like Luther learning survival skills or the carpenter skills Noah would require later. It might require the difficult training, like Jimmy Carter’s military experience, that could come in handy in unexpected ways. God always has a purpose for where you are right now.
Prayer: Dear Mighty Father, Often I wonder why I’m where I’m at in my life. Sometimes it feels like I’m going nowhere. But you have a purpose for every step in my life, even the less exciting and more difficult ones. Please keep my spirits encouraged even in those “training” times. Amen.
