(L-r) Juan Pablo Raba as Darío Segovia and Marco Treviño as José Henriquez in Alcon Entertainment’s true-life drama “THE 33,” a Warner Bros. Pictures Release. | (Photo: Douglas Kirkland)
When I began to consider those 33 men and those 69 days, the “Miracle in the Mine,” as many have called it, I spent hours adding up considerations of “what they had,” “what they did not have,” and what they might have had if they had known this event was going to take place . . .
If they had known they would go to work that Tuesday, August 5 of 2010, and that at 2:00 in the afternoon they would be trapped with no way out, no contact with the outside world, not enough provisions to keep them alive for more than a few days, and if they could have changed nothing except their hearts ahead of time . . .
What would it have been like? What would I have done? Take a pillow to work, for sure, but no, my thoughts were, if nothing changed ahead of time except my heart, what would that look like?
I would hide the Word in my heart, for certain! I would guard good habits and shun bad ones; I would address any relationship that could be polished up! But in the not knowing and the inability to do anything to change anything ahead of time, I determined at last the one best thing I could do would be to worship God, first, last, and continually. It seemed to me the very best that any of us could do would be to determine with all our hearts and minds that as long as we had breath, we would worship the Father and His Son and pray for all grace to honor and care for the others. I would lift up my hands to the Lord continually, and when I had no more strength at all, I would lift up, just my heart.
So, beginning this coming Monday, in the morning or particularly starting at 2:00 p.m., I hope, and it will be by the grace of God, to spend time every day in real worship, not just listening to good Christian music, but making music in my heart. Not just reading Scripture, but worshiping and praying my way through it. Not just grieving for others, but finding them, collecting them from the places “down there” where they have hidden from the rock falls and the pressure blasts . . . “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” . . . and praying for them as though we were trapped in darkness, unable to rescue ourselves.
It seems to me that, nothing could be more real or true. We are in darkness until the light of Christ shines in. We cannot save ourselves. Our faith is a gift, by faith are we saved by grace, lest any of us should boast. (Ephesians 2:8,9) Not one of us saved ourselves, and even stepping over the line from doubt to belief was through the mercy and the grace God gives us.
In all the accounts I’ve read about those men, very few even mention the man that first went DOWN into that hole to save the men trapped in that refuge. One man journeyed half a mile under the earth, through a narrow shaft cut through solid rock, inside a capsule so small that some of the miners would not have fit into it if they hadn’t lost so much weight. One man buckled in and made that first trip down into darkness, like a moving MRI tube, with no natural oxygen, in the hope of bringing all of them out, one at a time. Clearly, he did not want a lot of recognition. Neither do we. For sixty-nine days, while the world spins and life goes on, we will pray and worship, worship and pray, speaking every truth we can come across relative to the plight and the deliverance of those we love. Most of them, those trapped in darkness, bondage, prison, apathy, depression won’t even know that we are praying … drilling, drilling, drilling … but the Lord will see our faith, as when the four men let their companion down, through the roof, in front of Jesus. He praised those four and healed the paralyzed man! Even a paralyzed nation can be healed, as we know from 2 Chronicles 7:14.
I’ll do my best to be faithful with a daily encouragment, keep praying … keep worshiping! Real worship! More than spiritual warm fuzzies! Worshipping God, aloud, with joy! Real prayers, commending what He has said He has done and will do! Going prayerfully and worshipfully … verbally … through the Psalms is an amazing journey for any intercessor, and it would have to be as powerful as any drill bit ever made.
I will keep my calendar as clear as I can and, as Francis Frangipane says, set myself to “find God” every day. Some of those miners did the same at the outset, and with dark days (every day was dark) and moments of inspiration, in weakness of body and faith, in hope, in unity, not one was lost. With all my heart I love how Jesus said to the Father, in His “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17, “I have kept all those You have given me,” now, You keep them, Father, as I come to You.
Is it not true that a part of Jesus’ “keeping” of His flock depends upon our love, our faithfulness, and our intercession? This is an unspeakable honor to us, as was that trip that the mostly unnamed miner made, voluntarily, to bring the others to the surface. No one needs to know our names or how much we care, but the assignment is, “Bring them out!”
Marketplace Monastics 