At One Time

In mid-August a 32 year-old man led police on a high speed chase for miles near North Patchogue, New York. These chases never seem to have a happy ending. This one was no exception. The chase ended when the 1989 Lincoln being pursued slid over an embankment and into a pond.

Officers tried to get the attention of the driver, whose car was filling with water and beginning to sink. The cries of the would-be rescuers to “Get out of your car, you are going to drown” were met with a clicking sound.

Police realized the clicks were not caused by the driver’s efforts to escape the sinking vehicle. The clicking sound was that of a lighter the driver was using to try to light his crack pipe. The car was sinking and he is trying to “hit the pipe!”

When the water reached chin level, the frustrated driver dropped the crack pipe and crawled through the shattered rear window.

One word and many questions comes to mind when I imagine this scene. The word is “enslaved.“ The questions include “how can bondage be that strong?” and “what was he thinking?”

I don’t know how this story will end. Jail time? Drug treatment? Recovery?

But I do know that all of us have a similar story. We were enslaved. Enslaved to all kinds of passions and pleasures. But the good news is the good news — He saved us! God, in his kindness, love, mercy and grace, stepped in and did for us what we could not do for ourselves.

“At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:3-7).

He saved us!

Isn’t freedom wonderful?! — Bob Clark

9/28/2004