Looking for God in All the Wrong Places

“Are you my savior?” she asked with hope in her eyes and a smile on her face. Desperate to use the restroom facilities, my friend and coworker had been pestering the floor supervisor for some time to send someone to replace her for five minutes or so. I was the long-awaited answer to her pleas. She shoved the remote control for the grocery store self-check machines at me and rushed off, leaving her question hanging in the air behind her.

Are you my savior? In these days of difficulty it seems to be the universal cry of a people looking for a way out of the problems we face. We long to feel comfortable again, to be rescued from our own circumstances and the life issues surrounding us. Almost desperately we flock to the latest rising star, hoping that maybe he or she will provide the answers we need. We look from Dr. Phil to Oprah to President Obama to right our relationships, declutter our homes, fix the economy, bring home the troops, remove the terror threat and give us affordable healthcare. In our search for answers we’re asking the right question; we’re just putting it to the wrong people.

The question is remarkably similar to the title of a children’s book by P. D. Eastman I used to read to my boys long ago entitled Are You My Mother? With a smile at the memory I delighted again in the simple story of a baby bird that hatches to find itself alone, leaves its nest, and poses its question to one unlikely candidate after another, hoping to find its source of comfort and happiness. Perhaps the only relevance my trip down memory lane has to our current need of rescue it that the answer to our dilemma is likewise found in a book… not one of the millions of self-help books that line our shelves, but in God’s Book, the Bible. Our powerlessness to save ourselves is obvious. An imperfect people, we need a perfect sacrifice to pay for our sin. We need a Savior.

God’s people in Bible times likewise found themselves in need of a Savior, One that’s promised in the early pages of the Book and then delivered. Much of the middle is about people like us who came across Jesus and asked, as did John the Baptist, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:2 NIV). Are you my Savior? The answer is found in the pages that follow.

Surprisingly, the most important word in that question is the smallest. It doesn’t matter if Jesus is my pastor’s Savior, my husband’s Savior, or my best friend’s Savior. He’s not my Savior until I recognize my need, ask that question for myself and find Him speaking His response to me in some way, for He will answer.

My son showed up to take a midterm in one of his college classes recently without his textbook, unaware that a portion of the exam was an open-book test. Thankfully his professor saw that he was in need, called him out by name and offered him a copy of the volume. Your Teacher has done the same for you. Eventually there will be a moment when time will be called, all books will close and the decision-making opportunity will come to an end.

May the trumpet not sound before you have found the Savior you seek.

“…The King of Israel, even the Lord [Himself], is in the midst of you; [and after He has come to you] you shall not experience or fear evil any more…The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a Might One, a Savior [Who saves]!…”
(Zephaniah 3:15, 17 AMP)“