During World War II an American Bomber got lost, and it's crew parachuted out. The aircraft crashed about 16 miles from the crew, who all perished, 400 miles inland in the Libyan Desert of Central North-Africa. The diary belonging to one of the crew told of gruesome efforts for survival in trying to reach help.
More horrible than the accident of the “Lady Be Good” B-24 Liberator in 1943, was that none of the crew knew where they were at, nor did they know how or where to find help. The crash site wasn't even discovered until 15 long years later.
Nothing about needing help can deepen the spirit than not knowing how or where to find help; especially when navigation technology had failed to lead you to your goal.
At present there are over 30 Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites with 6 to 9 of them being accessed simultaneously by our GPS receivers in our airplane, farm tractors, automobile, or even most smart telephones. With GPS farmers can plant rows of crops over hilly fields with an accuracy of plus or minus four inches for that and other non-military purposes.
TIME is a 3rd crucial factor in needing to get help. Like the bomber crew... their time ran out in the hot arid desert conditions far more dangerous than the skies of Naples, Italy where they dropped their bombs to end the war between nations.
The time regarding the downed fliers had right hand – left hand aspects to it. On the one hand the stranded crew knew they had one canteen of water to share among them all. If only they had known there was a desert oasis just a few miles away, the history book accounts would have read quite differently. On the other hand was the time and resources the searchers were limited to, in the middle of this gigantic war. Time was running out in the minds of the family members back home who knew nothing of all this that God had full knowledge of.
Isn't it ironic that on every hand, man is restricted in some way by time. Yet the hands of the Creator of time, with those nail prints are never, in any way, restricted by time. Those are the very same open hands stretched out to us with the help cries of stranded lost souls, very near to us looking for the way 'home' to the salvation, purpose, and love of the One that rescued you and I on the far away hill called, “Golgotha”.
The manger of Bethlehem, we sing about each Christmas, is a testimony of God reaching out to all of mankind that was lost and not knowing which direction to call for help. God's own Son left Heaven and stepped into this sin-cursed defiled world to show and provide for a way home for you and I.
Now, the name Christian, means “Christ-like”. So if we are Christians deep on the inside as well as the outside, doesn't that define our task to reach out to those who have no spiritual home or how to get there? Many examples in scripture teach us to first be a friend to the lost. Next be a mentor to them, not out of pity, but of passion. Then we must show them the true direction finder, Jesus Christ and His mission to offer His love and righteousness as a free gift to all those ex-teens not knowing which way their eternal home is.
