Things are not as they seem...

Darrell Johnson, a professor at Regent, wrote a book on the Lord's Prayer called, "Fifty-Seven Words that Changed the World." The following is an excerpt from this book. It focuses particularly on the part where Jesus prays, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

And that is why Jesus teaches us to pray, "Our Father, we cannot stand up under very much pressure. We are not wise enough to recognize and then counter the work of the evil-one. When you lead us to the test, when life itself brings us to the test, do not let the test become a temptation, but rescue us... rescue us from the subtle strategies of the evil-one, and help us trust you."

This prayer God is more than pleased to answer. And my wife Sharon and I are testimonies to his answering it. Four days before Christmas of 2000, on December 20, our then eighteen-year-old son Alex, whom we had adopted six years earlier from an orphanage in Moscow, went hiking with a group of friends in the mountains just north of Los Angeles. They were making their way along a loose rock slope when the rocks gave way, and Alex slid down the slope and then over a 120-foot cliff. When the rescue team helicoptered into the canyon some 40 minutes later, the helicopter pilot said he was sure Alex was dead -- too much blood had flowed from his head to be alive. But when two of the paramedics got to him they found a pulse, and quickly evacuated him to the trauma center in Pasadena. By the time Sharon and I made it to the hospital, Alex was already in a coma and attached to life-support systems. The neurosurgeons could not say whether Alex would live. If he made it until Christmas Eve then there was hope he would recover. Even then the doctors would not say what kind of life he would live if he lived.

On the night before Christmas Eve, as I drove home from having spent the day in the ICU, I heard the following words, which I keep in my journal. "Things are not as they seem. In your life. In your son's life. In your wife's life. In the lives of your other children. In the lives of other patients in ICU. Things are not as they seem. There is more going on than meets the un-aided senses. There is a God. A Living God. A good God. A faithful God. A powerful God. A reigning God. An ever-present God. There is never a time when this God is not good. There is never a time when this God is not faithful. There is never a time when this God is not powerful. There is never a time when the God of the Bible is not on the throne of the universe. There is never a time when the God we meet in Jesus is not present. It is a promise: 'I will never leave you or forsake you.' Things are not as they seem." In one of the most frightening experiences of our lives the Father did it. The Father rescued us from the evil-one's attempt to destroy our faith.