Beach Comber
Finds Note in Bottle
In 2008, Merle was walking along Nelson Lagoon beach in Alaska which is a remote village along the Bering Sea and spotted a plastic drink bottle with a note inside. Merle sliced open the bottle and found that Emily, a fourth grade school girl in Seattle, Washington had had the bottle placed in the ocean as a school project. What was so surprising to Merle was the bottle had been sent twenty one years previous and had made its bobbing voyage of 1,735 miles. He did some research to see if he could locate Emily. She had been a student in the North City School in Seattle back in 1987. A representative for the School District relayed to Merle that Emily was now an accountant in Seattle.
Emily and her friends at work were discussing the odds of someone finding and answering a bottled letter. Many of them had tried such a thing but knew of no one that had ever received a response from their letter. They all agreed that this was surely a once in a life time happening.
Do you sometimes feel your prayers are like a message in a bottle thrown into the vast sea and your chances of getting an answer from God are a once in a life time rarity? If God is not your heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus, is not your Savior, you could be right. But, if Christ is your Savior, then God desires to hear from you and answer the prayers that come from your lips and your heart. He does hear, He does care, He does answer!
We are invited time and again in Scripture to share our prayers with our compassionate Heavenly Father. He says in Jeremiah 33:3, “Call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things...” In John 16: 24 Jesus speaks: “ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain you...” is what David the King wrote in encouraging us to talk to God. Depending upon our situations our prayers will often be different and yet God delights to hear from us and to help us in our moments of weakness, despair, pain, fear and temptation. We are taught in the book of James, “you have not because you ask not.” We do not have to put our requests in a bottle and cast them in an ocean of grayness and immense nothingness. He knows your name and desires that you speak often with Him concerning your needs and His will.
Oh, there is good news too for those who are not yet God’s children. “O, everyone that is thirsty (spiritually), come... hearken diligently to me: hear and your soul shall live,” so writes God’s prophet, Isaiah, in the Holy Bible. In there also God’s invitation is clear: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved (delivered from your sin, shame and guilt). He invites you with great kindness, “Call upon the name of the Lord and you will be saved.” All you must do is by faith believe what He says about you and about Jesus. He says about you, you are a sinner and have come short of His glory and the wages of your sin are death. His word says of Him that He is the Savior, He came to our world, died on the cross as a sacrifice in your place, and He was buried in a grave but was resurrected three days later. He is indeed the living Savior that receives and transforms sinners. He desires to hear and answer your response of faith.
If you care to talk with someone about your spiritual needs go to BBNchat.org.