The Rescue Plan

I haven't been sleeping well.  I wake between 3am-5am every morning and can't seem to go back to sleep.  Often my mind is plagued with thoughts of my previous day--and the failure I believe I am.

At 5am this morning, however, I awoke to something different.

"Julie, I have a rescue plan."

My first thought was, Hmmm...I've been watching too many Lost episodes. I'm dreaming someone is coming to rescue me from the island. (Confession: I have been watching too many Lost episodes!)

"I am the rescue plan."

I felt my lips repeat those words. "I am the rescue plan."

I started to pray.  "Lord, I trust you.  Take every thought captive."

"I AM the rescue plan."

My mind went to my tenacious love for Dan Garner.  

This is Dan & I the year we met with some of our very best friends, the Buntings.  That baby is their oldest daughter who is now a teenager!

I knew God whispered to me when I first met Dan.  I knew what God intended for us.  But, then, there were years of waiting, longing, and sometimes hopelessness.  How, even the night he told me his feelings for me were changing, I didn't believe God would ever fulfill His promise to me.  The relationship, though amazing in so many ways, showed little hope for marriage and longterm commitment.  All signs pointed to a place called "Impossible"--but nothing is impossible for God.  After seven years of trusting God in the wilderness, He led me to His promises.  I became Mrs. Dan Garner. Dan remains the greatest blessing in my life.

In the heat of a horrible night very early into our friendship, God said "Your children will know that their mother was faithful and their father was obedient."

"Children?" I thought.  With good reason.  Back then, this man couldn't love me, let alone marry me...let alone imagine having children with me.

But we do have children, don't we?  And now I need not wonder what my children will believe about their parents.  God has told me.

That same voice spoke to me in the still, darkness of 5am.

"Julie, I have a rescue plan.  I am the rescue plan.  I AM the rescue plan."

This morning, in family devotions, I read to my children about a lost treasure.  A man was hired to dig in a field.  As he was digging, he happened upon a treasure that had been lost.  He buried the treasure back, deep within the earth.  Then he went home, sold all he had and bought the land where he was digging.  In turn, he also became the rightful owner of the treasure.  WE are God's treasure.  Jesus came to earth to buy us back--and he gave everything he had to do that.  Jesus IS the great rescuer.  And He is always willing to pay the greatest price for us.  In fact, He already has.

Why, Child, do you worry?  Why do you lay awake and fret?  I have rescued you.  And I have a rescue plan for you TODAY.  And it isn't something you can do for yourself.  A dead man cannot rescue himself.  Jesus in my rescue plan.

I woke this morning with a new hope.  

Whatever trials and struggles ensnare us...no matter how alone and hopeless we feel...there IS a rescue plan.  We can trust God to fulfill His promises to us.  We can trust God to fulfill His glory in us and to transform us more into His likeness.  Nothing is out of His reach.  Nothing can pluck us from His hand.

Will you trust that He has a rescue plan?  That HE IS the rescue plan?

He whispered that promise to me in the darkness--not just of the night, but in the darkness of my soul.