There are moments in life that will get your attention. When the National Hurricane Center posts a storm update that shows the centerline of the storm’s projected path going right over your house, you understand how true that statement is. At that point, to not pay attention is to either fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the threat or to simply not care about the outcome. For those of us who have been through a hurricane, we know what can happen. We understand the potential power of the storm, and because we understand, we cannot help but care about the outcome. Additionally, we can better empathize with the poor souls in Florida, even though their experiences are much worse than what we’ve been through here with past storms. Our experiences with these attention-getting moments better equips us to deal with them in the future, and relate to others who have similar experiences.
Unfortunately, there are an endless string of potential attention-getting moments. They aren’t limited to tropical events. They aren’t even limited to meteorological events. When you are driving down the road and the semi-truck in front of you slams on his breaks, your attention is focused. When the doctor tells you that you have cancer, you are dialed in. When your boss unexpectedly tells you that you are being laid off, it is difficult to think about anything else. Are there people who will not pay attention when these things happen to them? Of course, but as with the hurricane example, it will be either because they don’t fully understand what is going on, or they simply don’t care. How will we handle our interactions with those people when we have been through those experiences ourselves?
First, I would suggest that the very reason that you have experience with that particular event is to be able to communicate with this person exactly where they are. Your time spent crying out to God “why me?” in the middle of some storm may not find an answer until you are presented with the opportunity to walk alongside someone who doesn’t understand what they are facing. Your experience may be the one thing that helps them through their storm. It may turn out that the very thing that you thought was intended for evil in your life, God intended to use for good.
Second, for those who seem to simply not care, who better to pour out love and caring than one who understands how bad things can really get? There are many people who act like they don’t care, but that is simply because they really don’t know how painful and devastating a potential outcome can be. If you unexpectedly had to travel through the valley of the shadow of death unprepared, you can tell someone else ahead of time why they really should care.
Of course, there’s a biblical application to this as well. Sooner or later, we will all face death. It may come so quickly that we don’t have the opportunity to think about it at that moment, or it may creep into our path so slowly that we have years to contemplate its finality. Some don’t know enough about it to pay attention, and some simply don’t care – but everyone should pay attention and everyone should care. None of us can escape it, but we are told that there is a way to prepare. Jesus came to us to tell us about what awaits us all, telling us that there are two futures – one for the prepared, and one for the unprepared. Then he died upon the cross for us, to ensure that we could have a way through the physical death that awaits us. His faithful church has been sharing this message for the last 2,000 years, and so I share it today. You should understand fully what will happen, and there’s nothing that you should care about more. If you want to learn more, come and join us Sunday morning at 10:00.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron