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I’d
like to tell you a story that was written by a man named Frank Stockton a
fair number of years ago.
He
told of a king, a semi-barbaric king who ruled a semi-barbaric kingdom. As
happens so often, this king had a beautiful daughter, and as beautiful
princesses often do, the king’s daughter fell in love with a peasant,
who loved her very much, as well. This is always a problem for daughters
and their fathers who hate to see their little girls marry someone who
isn’t good enough. The king simply couldn’t allow this. But this king
had a unique method of dispensing justice.
Those
who offended the king were given a choice: they could pick punishment or
mercy. The problem was, they weren’t sure which was which. The king had
created an arena with two doors down in the pit where the prisoner stood.
Behind one door stood a young and fair maiden. If he chose that door, he
was free to marry her and live a long and happy life. That was mercy. But
behind the other door lurked a huge and ravenous tiger that would tear to
pieces anyone who opened his door. That was the king’s notion of
justice.
So
that became the choice for the princess’ lover: the lady or the tiger.
Hence the title of our story.
Now
the princess was no dummy. She had her own network of spies, she knew
which door was connected to the lion’s den. All she needed was a way to
signal her lover to choose the opposite door. As the peasant walked into
the arena that fateful morning, she still lacked a plan to tip him off
without arousing the king’s anger. He looked up at her, seated beside
her father, and gazed deeply into her dark green eyes. Almost
imperceptibly, she turned her head to the right. Surely he saw, he knew.
As she was led away to be positioned behind the door, the princess looked
back for one last glimpse of her lover.
Indeed
the young man had seen, had understood. Choose the door on the right. But
was it her right, or his right? Finally he decided. When given his signal
to choose, the princess’ lover walked forward with utmost trust and
confidence, seized the handle of the door on his right, flung open the
chamber and gasped to see…What? We don’t know. That’s where the
story ends. The reader must supply the answer from his or her own
imagination. In fact, many a teacher has used this story as a way to teach
creative writing. Fill in what’s behind the door, and why.
Now
here’s the moral to this story: every one of us writes the ending to
their own story. Shakespeare said, “The past is prologue,” meaning
that everything that has happened to this point in your life is merely the
setup for the conclusion of your story. God may have provided the
setting—you had no choice in your parents, your family background, your
physical and mental capacities and many other factors—but you write the
ending. You decide if it’s a happy ending, not God and certainly no
other human being. You decide where you will finish in the race.
Many
people, I’m sure you’ll agree, start fast and fade badly in the
stretch. We’ve all seen examples of this, athletes, entertainers,
politicians. They seem to come out of nowhere, burn brightly for awhile,
and then just as quickly fade away. You’ve got to wonder what’s going
to happen to a Martha Stewart, or a Kobe Bryant, or even a Bill Clinton.
Right now they’re all at a crossroads, a crisis of sorts. Each was a
star who ran into trouble much of their own making., and now they have to
write their own future with how they handle the setbacks that have
occurred.
The
Bible has numerous examples of fast starters who faded later in life. One
was King Uzziah, who ruled the Kingdom of Judah almost 3,000 years ago.
Uzziah was 16 when he became king, and reigned for 52 years. You can read
his story is II Chronicles. He did a great job militarily and economically
for his people. Scripture said “He did what was right in the sight of
the Lord…and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.” But
he faded badly. Listen to what else the Bible says about him: “But when
he became strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was false to
the Lord his God.”
What
happened seems petty to us, but God apparently took it quite seriously.
Uzziah entered the Temple and tried to burn incense to God. That was the
Temple priests’ job and everybody knew it. They argued with the king,
but he was so full of himself he grabbed an incense burner to make an
offering, and leprosy actually broke out on his forehead. The Bible adds
that “King Uzziah was leprous until the day of his death, and being
leprous, lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of
the Lord.” Fast starter, but man, did he hit the wall.
So
I’d like to share some thoughts about why, when we start to get to the
last lap of the race, when it starts to feel like we’re going to just
break down and collapse on the track, it’s so important to call on God
for the strength to keep going, to write a good finish to our story.
Keep
going because it would feel so good to lie down in the dirt. There are
all kinds of emotions that make us feel really, really good, and a lot of
those emotions are quite negative. One of the most human of all is
self-pity. It happens to everybody at one time or another, that thirst to
really feel sorry for yourself when things go wrong. I’ve really drunk
deep from that cup myself. But when you’re in the last stages of your
race and your legs start to feel like lead and your breath comes in little
painful gasps and your blood pounds in your ears, then the temptation to
just give up and fall forward in the dirt is at its greatest. That’s
when you need motivation from beyond yourself the most.
True
story: in World War II, the Army set up a base to “toughen up” troops
down in Florida. The daily training for those men included an obstacle
course, and at the end of the obstacle course the GIs had to grab a rope
and swing over a pond to get to the finish line. Well this was Florida,
and it was steaming hot, and that water looked so cool and inviting, many
of the men just let go of the rope and took a little swim. That is, until
a young lieutenant got the bright idea to add a large alligator to the
pond. Then nobody wanted to let go of the rope.
Here’s
what we need to understand about the race we’re in: first of all, our
Great Enemy is going to do anything he can to get us to quit. Second, God
is not going to spare us from being tested. We have to prove ourselves
worthy of the prize, we have to write the ending of our story. Third, we
must never forget that God has promised that we will never be tempted
beyond our ability to endure. With every temptation, with every trial, he
is going to provide a way for us to win the victory. In Psalms 55 we read,
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee; he shall
never suffer the righteous to be moved.”
In
other words, when you hit the wall, you’ve got to learn to call on God
for your strength.
When Isaiah wrote
today’s Old Testament message, “Those who trust in the Lord for help
will find their strength renewed,” he wasn’t writing to the proud and
strong Israel of King David’s time, he was writing to the broken and
bleeding Israel that had been carried into exile in Babylon, the nation
that thought its history was over. They thought Israel had been wiped off
the map for good. They needed to know that they could still write the
ending of their story. They could return to the faithful worship of God,
and through his power, not their own, they could rise like eagles again.
And we need to hear that, too.
Keep
going because the Great Dance will be held after the race. When I was
in high school there always seemed to be a dance after big sports events,
football games, basketball games. Of course, whoever had been the hero of
the game was the center of attention. That’s the way it always is in
life, and probably the way it always will be. But I have some great news
for you this morning.
Once
we finish this race God has put before us, once we reach within ourselves
for something extra, there’s going to be a dance like you’ve never
seen before, and we all will be the center of attention for God’s love.
On
July 30, 1967, a young athletic girl named Joni Eareckson had a diving
accident in Chesapeake Bay. It left her totally paralyzed from the neck
down. Through a period of rehabilitation and therapy, however, she
gradually climbed out of her deep hole. She began to trust God and face
the future with realism. She learned to paint by holding the brush in her
mouth. She became a popular speaker and writer. And at the heart of her
transformation was her rediscovery of the Bible. She relearned its great
doctrines. She was helped by the vision of Christ on the cross, immobile,
paralyzed, like she was.
But
what helped her the most was the hope of the resurrection. “I have hope
for the future now,” she wrote. “The Bible speaks of our bodies being
glorified in Heaven. Now I know the meaning of being glorified. It’s the
time, after my death here, when I’ll be on my feet dancing.”
She
writes, “I with shriveled, bent fingers, atrophied muscles, gnarled
knees, and no feeling from the shoulders down, will one day have a body,
light, bright and clothed in righteousness—powerful and dazzling. Can
you imagine the hope this gives someone spinal cord-injured like me? Or
someone who is cerebral-palsied, brain injured, or who has multiple
sclerosis? Imagine the hope this gives someone who is manic depressive. No
other religion, no other philosophy promises new bodies, hearts and minds.
Only in the Gospel of Jesus Christ do hurting people find such incredible
hope.”
It’s
the physical nature of the resurrection that keeps Joni Earickson going in
spite of everything. Joni described going to hear a Christian speaker, and
at the end of his talk he asked his audience to kneel in prayer. She
watched them do so, and obviously she could not. And she couldn’t stop
the tears from flowing. Kneeling in prayer was how she was raised as a
girl in the Episcopal church. And now she couldn’t. Then she remembered
the resurrection.
“Sitting
there,” she wrote, “I was reminded that in Heaven I will be able to
jump up, dance, kick and do aerobics. And although I’m sure that Jesus
will be delighted to watch me stand on tiptoe, there’s something I plan
to do that may please him more. If possible, somewhere, sometime before
the party gets going, sometime before the guests are called to the banquet
table at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, the first thing I plan to do on
resurrected legs is to drop on grateful, glorified knees and I will
quietly kneel at the feet of Jesus.”
Keep
running because there is going to be a tomorrow. That’s God’s
promise to us—there is going to be a tomorrow. Even if he should come
back to earth in the next few minutes, there’s going to be a tomorrow
for his faithful people. For those who haven’t kept faith with him, not
so much. A man who was living on the island of Guam, out in the middle of
the Pacific Ocean, found it necessary to call in to his home office in
Maryland from time to time. Because of the time difference, he would call
at 7 a.m. Friday on Guam, but in Maryland it would still be 4 p.m.
Thursday.
Once
he was just getting started on what promised to be a long tough day, when
his mood instantly picked up by hearing the voice back in Maryland who
said, “Thanks for calling. It always makes me feel good to hear from
somebody on Guam. It lets me know that there’s going to be a
tomorrow.” Do you understand that? There’s going to be a tomorrow no
matter what you’re going through today. God is always working things out
for our good, and giving us what we need to win the victory. Oswald
Chambers wrote in a devotional, “Nothing touches our lives but it is God
himself speaking.”
Thomas
Ken was a bishop in the Anglican Church. I’m sure that nobody here has
ever heard of him. He once was imprisoned in the Tower of London, but
nobody remembers him for that. He is remembered for four simple lines of
poetry that formed the last verse of his Morning Hymn. They are familiar
to every Christian in the English-speaking world. We sing them at every
worship service: “Praise God from whom all blessing flow. Praise him all
creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father,
Son and Holy Ghost.”
That,
my friends, is what we need to sing when we hit the wall. That’s what we
need to sing when our legs feel like lead. That’s what we need to sing
when our hearts have been broken, when our exhausted mind starts to play
tricks on us, when Satan starts to whisper in our ear, ‘You’ll never
finish because you’re just not good enough.’ Praise God from whom all
blessings flow.
What
I love about the Olympic Games is the drama of competition. There are
always favorites who fall flat, and underdogs who beat the odds and win
the gold medal, sometimes in spectacular fashion.
How
many saw Paul Hamm win the all-around men’s gymnastics gold medal
Wednesday night? This was one of the most amazing stories in Olympics
history, but I’m going to try to give you the condensed version. First
of all, Hamm was favored to win the gold medal, but you wouldn’t think
so watching him on the vault. He was trying to do a backwards somersault,
but he didn’t get enough height, stumbled when he landed and actually
fell into the scorer’s table. That one mistake dropped him all the way
to 12th place, just about an impossible deficit to overcome.
But
he didn’t give up. He wrote his own ending. Paul Hamm had to be perfect
in his last two events and that’s exactly what he was—perfect, or
very, very near. First on the parallel bars, and then on the high bar. The
first event moved him back to fourth place, and the second?
After
he completed his flawless landing, Hamm’s score, 9.837, flashed on the
scoreboard, and the crowd went crazy. Hamm had come all the way back from
his crushing humiliation to win the gold medal by .012 points, the closest
finish in the history of men’s gymnastics at the Olympics.
I
know I am talking this morning to someone who is weary with life’s race.
It could be a lot of things.
Maybe
you’re tired of getting up and going to work, or you’re tired to
taking care of someone in your family.
Maybe
you’re discouraged by your health or lack of it. Maybe you’re a widow
or widower who is terribly lonely. Or maybe you’re just at a low moment
of faith and God seems very, very far away.
Whatever
it is, don’t you quit! You’ve come so far in life with Jesus Christ,
now run with him to the finish line. Write the ending to your story. You
can be the hero—the hero of hanging in there.
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