Rescue me

"Come quickly to my rescue"

Psalm 31:2

Rescue:  to save someone from a dangerous or distressing situation

Have you ever needed to be rescued?  I mean, serious would-have-died-if-someone-hadn't-done-something kind of rescuing?  When I was about three, I went out too far in a neighbor's pool, and my older sister ~ she was 6 ~ jumped in to rescue me.  Of course, then my mother had to rescue both of us...

Have you ever wanted to be rescued?

Maybe you're praying, right now, for rescue.

I found it interesting that the definition of "rescue" includes saving someone from a "distressing" situation.  I always thought it meant the person was in a life-threatening situation.  But now that I think about it, if we find ourselves out of eggs in the middle of a recipe, we might say that our neighbor came to our rescue.  So I think the key is to know if we are crying out for rescue from a dangerous situation, or simply a distressing one.

Distressed:  suffering from extreme anxiety, sorrow or pain.  From the Latin for "to stretch"

Are you in danger?  Or are you being stretched?  We can't always know for sure.

I'm reading a book on the Pilgrims ~ the group that came to Plymouth in the 1600s.  They had a rough time of it.  Not enough food, not prepared for the winter, not enough knowledge of agriculture.... Suspicious of the natives they found there, and many of them succumbing to disease, the Pilgrims prayed for rescue.  They waited and waited for a supply ship to come from England, for more than a year.  And while none of those early years in America were easy, that first year was the hardest.  So while they waited, and they watched the horizon, I'm betting they prayed, too.

For many months, no ship came.  But when it finally did, the Pilgrims had gotten through the hardest part.  They had learned and grown, and neither they, nor the world, would ever be the same again.

But for those long months, they had prayed for rescue.

But God chose not to rescue them.

If that ship had come, how many of those Pilgrims would have gotten on that ship, to return to England? What would have happened to that settlement if they had decided it was too hard, and given up.  What would have happened if God had rescued them?

They were in danger.  They were in distress.  They were being stretched.

Are you praying for rescue?  If you don't see the ship on the horizon, don't lose faith.  It's coming.  But His timing is perfect, and you need to be stretched.

~ "Wait for the Lord; 

be strong 

and take heart, 

and wait for the Lord" ~

Psalm 27:14