A Lesson from a Pick-up Truck Driver
It was a Saturday night in Port O’Connor and the locals’ Facebook page was blowing up: a white pick-up truck was stuck out in the bay. The tide had been out with the water already at an unusually low level. The truck’s driver had ambitiously driven out across the wet sand, presumably in order to fish. Unfortunately though, the plan failed. The truck got stuck and no amount of careful maneuvering would set it free. The wheels went deeper and deeper into the wet sand.
It was the driver’s fault, obviously enough. He hadn’t paid attention to where he was or the risks of the low tide. He should have stayed where water never reached on the beach except for a rainstorm, but hindsight couldn’t fix the problem–he was already stuck with no way out.
Cue the locals. People offered left, right and center to provide a towing service. In the process, two more trucks got stuck! Yet the thing that blew up on the media page was the question of remuneration. Should the Good Samaritans who volunteer to help get paid? They were putting their trucks and tow ropes at risk (as some found out). Surely the truck’s driver should cover them for any losses they incurred. Should payment be made up front? Some said yes. Others said no (lamenting a time when such help would be given for free).
In the middle of this conversation, I realized something. I am the driver. So are you. So are we all. We brazenly drive out on ground far too unstable to support our grand plans and foolish ambitions, and we get stuck; stuck in our selfish desires, our sins and our certainties; stuck, fundamentally, in our separation and alienation from God.
Yet God in His grace came and rescued us. He is like the man who drove his dozer across Calhoun County to come and rescue this poor truck from the rising tide and the erosion of the salt water. God did what was necessary to save us from ourselves and the deathly consequences of our sin. Not only did He do so, but He also took the cost on Himself. He wasn’t worried about losses. He knew it would be costly and He did it anyway. The price? The life of His own Son.
“In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.”
1 John 4:10-11
So go and love likewise.
