Divine Rescue

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Today's reading, titled Divine Rescue, was written by Wynn Collier. After being informed of a 911 call from a concerned citizen, a police officer drove alongside the train tracks, shining his floodlight into the dark until he spotted the vehicle straddling the iron rails. The trooper's dashboard camera captured the harrowing scene as a train barreled toward the car. That train was coming fast, the officer said, 50 to 80 miles per hour.

Acting without hesitation, he pulled an unconscious man from the car mere seconds before the train slammed into it. Scripture reveals God as the one who rescues, often precisely when all seems lost. Trapped in Egypt and withering under suffocating oppression, the Israelites imagined no possibility for escape. In Exodus, however, we find God offering them words resounding with hope. I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt, he said.

I have heard them crying out, and I am concerned about their suffering. And God not only saw, God acted. I have come down to rescue them. God led Israel out of bondage. This was a divine rescue. God's rescue of Israel reveals God's heart and his power to help all of us who are in need. He assists those of us who are destined for ruin unless God arrives to save us.

Though our situation may be dire or impossible, we can lift our eyes and heart and watch for the one who loves to rescue. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Exodus chapter 3 verses 7 through 10. The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.

I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.

So now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt. Let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for coming down and rescuing us and leading us in a new direction, the direction of abundant life. We pray for those who don't know you yet and ask for opportunities to share your story of love and rescue with them. May their hearts be broken and may they surrender themselves to you today. Thank you, Lord. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.