The Cost

This past Sunday we had a guest speaker. During the sermon he was giving he told the story of John Griffith, a bridge operator. His job was to man a bridge spanning over the Mississippi river, to open it for ships to pass and to close it for trains to cross. Now, I have since the sermon looked online for more information about the story and have seen a couple different ways it is told, but they are all basically the same. John took his 8 year old son with him one day to work. The boy was delighted to be with his father and to see what he does and the father was overjoyed to have his son with him, to be able to spend this time with him. At some point during the day the father is caught off guard by a train approaching the bridge to cross, however the bridge is up. His son at this point had either fallen or wandered into the gears that control the bridge and if he were to close the bridge the gears would crush his son. There is no time to save the son and the people in the train. Faced with this dilemma the father has to make a choice as to who he allows to die, his son or the people on the train. He makes the difficult choice that he knows he has to make and pulls the lever to lower the bridge, sacrificing his son so that many might live.

Now, some may argue the validity of this story, however I would argue that it doesn't matter. This story is one that allows us to see the cost of our own salvation. God was the father who had to sacrifice His Son so that many might be saved and be given life and Jesus was the son who died. Now the biggest difference between these two stories is that Jesus wasn't just there, he had to be there. If Jesus had not been there to give His life then none would have been saved. Think of it this way, Jesus had to stand on the gears to hold a piece in place while they functioned and He knew full well that doing this would cost Him his life. To choose to give your life for another is not something most people would do, and to give the life of your son would not be your first choice either, but this was the plan that they created. God gave up His most precious Son for us, to die in our place so that we could have eternal life with Him. Now most of the tellings of John's story say that he looked upon the passing train and saw the passengers and all of them were completely oblivious to what he had just done for them, they didn't know he had given his best for them so that they could live. God gave His best for us, but we know the story and know what He gave. So in light of this knowledge, lets make sure the other passengers on this train see what we see, that God gave the most precious thing that the world could ever know so that they might live.

Called by Name

Have you ever had a time in your life where you were going about your business and had nothing else in mind except accomplishing your own tasks when suddenly you hear your name called out? You are interrupted from your current direction and redirected to something else, often times something greater. I have had times where someone saw me as I was going about my business and their interruption by calling out my name lead to a wonderful conversation with them and they have even helped me find something better than what I was looking for. Those little interruptions can be life changing and it all starts with someone calling you by name and interrupting what you think is so important.

The greatest interruption I can think of is the one that God had with me. You see, I was going about my life as we all do without a single care about my future life. Everything that I was doing was about my life here and now and I thought I was happy in it when suddenly I heard someone call out my name. The only way any of us ever escape this life and have hope in the next is when God calls us. It is not us that seek him out, we are far too busy for that, it is when He decides to call out our name and cause us to turn and to see there is more than just what we are doing now. We have an eternity of joy awaiting us simply because we were called by God to pursue something more than just this life. God could have simply let us pass by without a word but instead He called us and showed us wonderful things in His Son Jesus Christ. Because of this call my life has changed, I pursue more and more things that are eternal and turn away from things that are worthless. I've stopped shopping the bargain bin of life so that I may shop the super sale of God's abundance where things aren't cheap, they're free and of the highest quality. So, if you see someone wandering about that you know make sure to call out to them, call them by name, you might be able to bless their lives in ways you never anticipated.

This post was inspired by: 1Corinthians1:1-3