Sunday: Taking Your Captor Captive
WEEK 22
SUNDAY
TAKING YOUR CAPTOR CAPTIVE
2 Corinthians 2:14-17
We have been looking at the mastery of pain and unjust suffering. The Christians mastered these by harnessing them and making them serve them. When they were kicked, they saw to it that they were kicked forward. Paul could say, “I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:5 MNT). Everything served.
I saw a vivid and almost ridiculous possibility of making calamity into opportunity. We landed, a little late, at an airport in a southern city. Two pastors drove us back to the city, and because we were late, they drove too fast. A police car ran alongside and motioned us to the curb. The pastor who was driving said: “Oh, Officer, you are just the man I want. I’ve got to get this man into the city for a six o’clock meeting. We’ve got five minutes. Can you give us a police escort?” “Escort?” snapped the policeman, “I’m giving you a ticket.” “All right,” said the quick-thinking pastor, “Give me a ticket, but also give us an escort, please.” The officer looked at him for a moment, incredulous, but said, “All right, fall in behind and follow me.” We went through the traffic of the city with sirens going. Everything stood still for us. We ran all the red lights and came through in glorious triumph exactly on time. The officer looked at the pastor’s license, smiled, and waved him on. We had taken our captor captive and made him lead us in triumph.
These early Christians knew that secret. They turned troubles into triumphs, sorrows into song. They made everything contribute.
This power of comeback and recovery is seen in the sign that a real-estate agent put up on a shack after the great Chicago fire had wiped out everything he had, “All gone except wife, children, and energy.” That spirit of comeback could not be wiped out. It built a new Chicago out of the ashes of the old—and a better Chicago. When disease ruined all the coffee trees of Ceylon, the planters made opportunity out of it by turning their plantations into tea—and did better.
Everything serves those who serve God.
Dear Christ, I thank you that I can master all, if only I am mastered by you. Help me to make everything grist in my mill, even injustices. In your name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am harnessing everything to the chariot of God’s purposes. Everything serves.