Rescued To Rescue: Your Role In The Great Rescue MissionSample

Willing Rescuers  

When I was growing up, my dad worked at a university. One summer he led a group of students to Brazil and my family was able to join him. While there we stumbled across this little boy who was about 5 years old. He had no shoes, no shirt – he was just wearing a torn piece of underwear.  He was a street child. At that time in Brazil, there were thousands of street children, but God had put this one little boy in my path — one little boy named Nildo. I may not have been able to help all the street children in Brazil, but I could make a difference for him. 

Since then, my work has taken me around the world, and I have been confronted with great human need everywhere I go. People living in extreme poverty; women abused, sold, and treated as property; children sick from the effects of dirty water, and Christians persecuted for their faith. And it is not just halfway around the world. There are desperate people right across the street. Friends battling cancer, marriages ending in divorce, lost jobs, and children being bullied.  If I am honest, the number of people in great need in our world today is simply overwhelming.

But here’s the thing — although we get the opportunity to rescue, we aren’t called to save every person. That would be a huge burden that no individual can carry. But we can help one. 

Maybe you feel inadequate, not fully equipped to help someone who is hurting or lost. I’ve got good news: you’re in good company. 

Our part? Be willing. God’s part? The rest! That doesn’t sound as intimidating, does it? 

I know that sometimes insecurities, fears, and doubts can get in the way. Would God really call me to help this person, travel to this country, go THAT far out of my comfort zone? The answer is yes. He does call us to do hard and seemingly impossible things for those desperate and hurting in our world. But not all in our own strengths or abilities. 

God’s strength and power shine like the sun through all of our weaknesses and limitations. 

We are rescued to rescue. But ultimately the point isn’t in the rescuing — it’s in pointing others to the Rescuer. 

Follow Noel on social media @noelyeatts or here .