Calling for help!

When a fireman sees someone trapped in a burning building, he does not stop to inquire whether the person inside has led a moral life, whether he is a good man worth saving.  As soon as he sees, as soon as he hears a cry for help, he rushes to rescue the helpless person, most often at the risk of his own life.

In Jesus, we see the face of God Himself, who from the beginning tried to tell those who would listen that He Himself would be our strength and our salvation, the One who would direct our path.  Isaiah says this:

O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more.  How gracious he will be when you cry for help!  As soon as He hears, he will answer you.  Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.  Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."

He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful.  In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows.   The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with the fork and the shovel.  In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill.  The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted (30:19,ff).

The "bread of adversity" and "the water of affliction" are designed to make us realize that we are in a burning building and that we are helpless to save ourselves.  Without adversity and affliction, we do tend to believe that we are "as gods," and that we need nothing.  But as soon as we lift our voice to cry for help, He is there, lifting our burdens and showing us the way out.  Not only does he rescue us from the burning building, but He also leads us into quiet pastures where we can recover our strength and learn the ways of peace.

It is never that we have been "good enough" to be saved; it is only that we have been desperate enough to call for help.  Those who walk in the paths of peace do so only because they have seen hell, and they never want to return to that place.  Having tasted heaven, they desire to remain.