Paul and Silas in prison, Washington Allston, Kemper Museum, public domain, death of the artist

I am going to propose the unimaginable, and yet many of you do it all the time.

            At 2:00 p.m. on this date, fourteen years ago, a slab of rock, more than twice the size and many times the weight of the Empire State Building, slid away from whatever shelf had been holding it for centuries and trapped 33 men in the belly of the San Jose mountain.  Half a mile down, beneath solid rock, the way out was barred forever.  

            I’ve spent months trying to imagine what that would have been like.  I’ve seen that, I don’t think I would have cried, not then, nor shaken my fist in fury at the owners of the mine, who had been quite negligent.  As they said of their earliest reactions, first would have come confusion, running attempts to find rescue outlets, and, as they did, one man, the smallest of them, tried to squeeze through a few open feet of a crevice, until he went as far as he could go … not far at all … and nearly lost his mind backing out in fear and despair.   

            They continued checking out the broken escape ladders and the possibility of accessing another route or way to climb out, but finding none, knowing that they were buried alive … they said afterward that one of the very worst emotions they suffered was the feeling of helplessness.  That they could do NOTHING to save themselves.

            What if …

If I had been trapped in there with you, one of us would have said, “Well, there is one thing we CAN DO.  It seems it will prove to be the only thing we can do.  We can worship the Lord God.  We can say that He knows our names, knows where we are, knows how long we will live, with or without rescue, and we can worship Him!  Let’s thank Him for everything we can call to mind that He has done for us, and all that He is to us!”  I must admit, that’s asking a lot!

            Day after day, with no evidence, no sound of rescue attempts being made, with enough food to last for more than a few days, it was SO HARD to do nothing.  I believe it would make all the difference in that underground world to be able to say, “This, we will do, as long as we have life and breath.  We will worship the Most High God.”

            Paul and Silas did it.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did it.  David did it all the time.  You’ve done it many times.  I did it when I laid Frank’s head down as he took his last breath, and I did it when the hospital said I could finally see Tim, as soon as he was medically paralyzed and could no longer recognize me.  When there is NOTHING to do but lose heart OR worship, we will worship.

            When something MUST BE DONE, but we cannot do it or cause someone else to do it, we will worship.

            For several days, no rescue attempts were made.  They nearly closed the mouth of the tunnel and put up a cross outside.  Tomorrow I will tell you why that did not happen, but when I had asked and asked of the Lord, “What would it have been like?”  “How could anyone prepare, spiritually, for such a disaster?”  “What could I do, what would I do, in that horror?”  I believe the Spirit of God showed me this one thing … we could worship, and for 69 days, we can and we propose to worship for those 33 of our friends and family who are as stuck and as lost in darkness as ever those men were.

Bill Morrow, Colossal Cave, Tucson,AZ, by permission, Wikipedia

A nice, dry cave, with a stream of fresh cool water running through it, dark but airy, quiet, cool, beautiful … sounds like a great spot for a Sabbath rest, for an hour or two of perfect silence, not too far from the entrance and the way out.

For the brave, a day or two, with a nice sleeping mat and plenty of food and fresh water, could be life-transforming.

However … 69 days in the dark, nearing starvation, penned in, walled in, desperate, helpless to save one’s self or to call for help, alone except for 32 other frightened men. Could you Sabbath there?

That would hardly be “rest,” and yet, it couldn’t be anything else!

Oh, Lord God, we pray today as we begin tomorrow this season of prayer and fasting, that You will administer rest tothe souls of those for whom we pray. In Jesus’ name, comfort them until they are comforted, confront them until they see You as You are, we pray. Give the rest that no one but You could ever give.

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3)

(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!”

By a certain time in life, all of us consider that our days will sometime come to an end. For most of us, we then think very little about that day and time until it is upon us. That is a good thing when we are able to greet each day with thankfulness, with faith in this life and faith toward the next . . .

Supposing, however, you and I were to wake up one morning, going about our day as consciously or unconsciously as ever, and then, at around, let’s say, 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon, we were to find ourselves cast down into a hole in the earth, hundred of meters, thousands of feet underground, in the dark, and with no way out. We look, we gaze about as best we can, we explore, tentatively, our hearts beating like steam engines, but there is, and we know it, no way out.

If you wish, stop and imagine with me. Would you cry? I don’t think I would. Not then, not yet. Would you pound on the walls … let’s say, of stone … and rage against your misfortune? I don’t think I would do that, either.

Imagining, I think I might fall to my knees and pray to be kept very near to the Lord, that He would help me every minute, bring me up and out, but … being there and knowing I had no means of signaling that I was trapped or where, knowing that if ever I were to come out into the light once again, that it would be a rescue staged by God Himself, I think I would commit myself into His keeping as whole-heartedly as my fear would allow.

This is just and exactly what happened to thirty-three men in a gold and copper mine in Chile on August 5th, 2010. I was there … not in the dark, but via the news, as soon as word got out. With all the rest of the world, I cared, I prayed, I hoped, nearly lost hope, and I rejoiced with great rejoicing, along with an estimated one billion people around the world, when the last of them was brought up through a chute in the rock, drilled a half mile down and made ready for a capsule to lift them, one by one, to the surface.

Until that last man emerged, and the last man was not one of the original thirty-three, we held our breath. It was a long time before their story was fully told, as fully as has been possible, but we have learned much about their sixty-nine day ordeal, and we can learn much from it.

It was not until the second day that they, collectively, did kneel and collectively ask the Lord to stay near to them, to give them courage, to keep them strong, and to get them out. What mostly broke out was … repentance. And a facing of fears. The sands of more than one hourglass are draining, slowly, for each of us. Will we be faithful in our marriages? Will we care for those we have been given to love, at home and abroad? Will we conquer temptation and unbelief and live as free men and women? Until the sands run on out on our mortal lives, we may invert that bubble and trust the revelation given to us by Jesus Himself, “The work of God is this, to believe in the One He has sent.” (John 6:29)

I’ve never forgotten those men, through a series of circumstances in my own life, their story has stayed precious to me, but this August the 5th will be the 14th year anniversary of that day. Certainly, August 5 never rolls around but they remember that hour and that prison …

This year, I want to memorialize their rescue, the miracle that took place, underground, above ground in their hearts, in their families, in Chile, and among spectators around the world. Isn’t it glorious when people in Bangkok, Perth, Salzburg, Reykjavik, Boulder, Tahiti, and Siberia are all, as one, rejoicing and giving glory to God, even if they don’t quite yet know His Name? That’s what happened, all over the globe, but today, you and I know a few, perhaps 33, who have not yet emerged into the life that is theirs in Christ Jesus.

Picture taken by Rafael Ibáñez Fernández in Las Médulas, province of León, Spain, on 11th December, 2005