Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. [Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 (NLT)]
When visiting our daughter’s family in New Mexico one October, stormy weather caused us to switch from the pumpkin patch/corn maze outing to an escape room attempt. With just an hour to solve a mystery and “escape,” we entered into a room filled with assorted puzzles, locks, props, and gadgets. Knowing we had to discover clues and complete a series of clever puzzles, we novices decided to divide and conquer. Each person worked on a different task speaking to their individual strengths. I worked on word puzzles while others worked on number challenges, dexterity puzzles, combination locks, or searched for hidden clues.
Silently working on our individual tasks, we missed important clues like the picture of randomly placed fruit. Had we counted the six apples, four lemons, two pineapples, and eight limes, we would have known the four numbers we needed to open a combination lock! Thinking the content of a letter was important, we missed seeing that it was an acrostic with the first letter of each line spelling the clue!
Wanting to prove our stellar problem-solving skills, we hesitated to ask our game guide for help. It wasn’t until we consulted her, talked with one another, and started working as a team that we made any headway. With less than five minutes left, we finally unlocked the kitchen door—only to find that it led into another locked room with even more hidden clues! Our guide is the one who finally released us. Even though we held a up sign saying “epic fail” in our post-game photo, we learned some valuable lessons about life.
Sure that we were as smart as the game master and wanting to get bragging rights for completing it on our own, rather than asking for help, we wasted time spinning our wheels and getting nowhere. Isn’t that what we do with God by only going to Him when all else fails? After all, if we do it by ourselves, we get the glory but, when we ask for God’s help, He gets the glory! Paul, however, tells us that God’s power works best in weakness: “So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. … For when I am weak, then I am strong.” [2 Corinthians 12:9-10]
Ignoring the wise words of Ecclesiastes, rather than help one another, we divided to do our own thing. No one, however, makes it through an escape room alone—it’s a team effort and so is life! Escape rooms require collaboration, cooperation, communication, and listening to one another (even when the idea seems crazy); so does life in Christ.
Although we each had our own particular gift set and abilities—it wasn’t until we appreciated the gifts of others that we made any headway. Being the shortest one in the room, my grand saw a code on the baseboard that we bigger people missed. Even though she wasn’t good with letters or numbers, she spotted what turned out to be the most important clue! No one’s gift is more or less valuable when it’s a team effort. Isn’t that what Paul is telling us in 1 Corinthians 12?
The final lesson we learned was a simple one—don’t be afraid to lose. Failure—even an epic one like ours—is an inevitable part of playing any game so it’s best to embrace the game rather than the outcome. As for our life in Christ—we too will experience failure. With the exception of Jesus, no one else in Scripture did life perfectly. Nevertheless, because we believe in Jesus, we know the eventual outcome is a win. In the meantime, let us find joy in our journey, regardless of its challenges and difficulties.
So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. [Matthew 24: 42 (NLT)]
A pastor friend who’s led dozens of mission trips used to evaluate his mission’s success by the number of new believers gained during the trip. If the latest mission’s altar call stats did not exceed the previous mission’s numbers, he felt it was a failure. Like him, we tend to be number people who measure our success or failure quantitatively. Business success is gauged by the balance sheet, bottom line, and price-earnings ratio; financial success by income, the value of our investment portfolio, and the size of our house or the price of our car. Regardless of the sport, with their assorted BAs, RBIs, Yds, Gs, PPRs, FT%s, and GOAT points, stats seem to evaluate every athlete’s success. Social success is assessed by the number of holiday cards we send or receive, how many “friends” we have on social media, and how many “likes” we got on our latest post. Intellectual success is measured by IQ, SAT, ACT and GPA numbers. A pastor assesses his success by Sunday’s attendance (or the offering), the teacher by the standardized test results of her students, and the author by his book’s ranking on the best seller list. I’m no different; I often check my website’s stats to see the number of followers, visitors, and views.
Growing up, one of my favorite hymns was, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.” Its author, Lesbia Scott, wrote hymns for her children as expressions of the family’s faith. Not originally intended for publication, she wrote this song to emphasize that saints lived not just in the distant past but also in the present day. My favorite verse was the final one and I recall singing it loudly with childlike enthusiasm: “The world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will. You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store, In church, by the sea, in the house next door; They are saints of God, whether rich or poor, and I mean to be one too.”
I thought of that great fixed chasm between heaven and hell again after reading C.S. Lewis’ fantasy, The Great Divorce. Lewis clearly warns his readers that the book is a fantasy, what he calls “imaginative supposal,” and should be read that way. He does, however, add that it does have a moral. The book’s unnamed narrator (presumed to be Lewis) describes what seems to be hell as a grey, dingy, and utterly joyless place where quarrelsome souls continually argue with one another and move further and further apart. Finding himself there, the narrator joins others as they take a bus ride from this grey world to a vibrant, beautiful, and substantial place that appears to be heaven.
Shortly after accusing the Pharisees of being more concerned with appearing righteous than being righteous and warning them that God knew what was in their hearts, Jesus told them a story about a rich man (who probably appeared quite righteous) and a beggar named Lazarus. The leprous and destitute Lazarus sat by the rich man’s gate and begged for scraps from the man’s table while mangy dogs licked at his wounds. The rich man ignored the beggar; to him, Lazarus probably was a little more than a piece of trash to step over before entering his home. When Lazarus died, he was carried by angels to a heavenly banquet and seated in a place of honor beside Abraham. When the rich man died, however, he ended up in Hades or Sheol, the realm of the dead. The mention of “torment” and “flames” there indicates that the rich man was in what Jewish tradition called Gehinnom (a place of fire and anguish).
