A Long Embrace

Watch the long embrace on YouTube

Last Wednesday, while I was on a treadmill working through some hill repeats, I watched the rescue of Victor Zamora, the 14th of the Chilean mine workers to be pulled from the San Jose Mine.  This was great inspiration for a hard workout; the amazing story shown on live TV served as a very good distraction and motivator!

I had lots of thoughts running through my mind as I watched the above clip...Victor Zamora is a REAL person, with a family...and with hobbies, hopes for the future, and fears.  He is not an actor, or a person in a magazine, or a man easy to forget.  His life is valuable.  His life, along with the lives of another 32 mine workers, are so valuable that countless hours and expense and risk went into a plan to rescue them.

Do you believe that your life is that valuable?  Do I?

What about the lives of your parents or children or other family members?  Or your friends?  Or neighbors?  What about the acquaintance who landed himself in jail?  Or what about the Kenyan child who has no drinking water today?  Are these lives worth saving?  Are these REAL people to you?  To what lengths will you go to rescue these people?  At what cost would you participate in the rescue effort?

The liberation of the miners reminded me of some words found in the Bible's Psalm 40...

I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry.   He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.

God spares nothing when it comes to rescuing us.  This is His promise to us.

I loved watching Victor and his wife Jessica embrace.  It was a long embrace.  Almost uncomfortably long.  God's love is like that.  It is long and tight and overwhelming.  He won't let us go.