A Lesson Learned from 24

So I am now working my way through Season 5 of 24, the best show ever put on TV. And it is significantly better than any action movie ever made...after all it is akin to a 24 hour movie. But I digress.

While I was watching disc 2 of Season 5 last night I got a little frustrated because there is in every season a lot of personal drama weaved into the overall plot. Relationships suffer and sometimes end due to frustration and often from death. And I was getting tired of it last night. I just wanted Jack to get the bad guys, stay alive, save the innocent, etc.

But I changed my mind this morning.

I slept late this morning because I was up with my 15 month year old son late into the night. He was coughing and sniffing and sneezing and would not go to sleep till around 12:45 am. And so this morning I was wondering why God cannot give my wife and I more than just a few days of healthy children. We have had so much sickness in our house in the past few months, it is overwhelming. And then I put those problems up against the uphill battle we have in being a part of starting Redeemer Classical School as Founding Board Members. And then it hit me.

What Jack Bauer and his coworkers in CTU battle is not done in a vacuum. They must fight against evil in the midst of all the drama of their real lives. They fight while dealing with drug addicts for relatives, children with bad decision making skills and mental disorders, romantic relationships that can be stormy. There is sickness and friends and family in need. And they have the imminent threat of hundreds of thousands of lives being taken because terrorists have a ___________. Life and all its problems that derive from the Fall, cannot be put on hold while the good guys go defeat the bad.

And so I got to thinking. It is the same for myself and all the other board members. Not only will we have all the difficulties and hardships that are part of starting a school from scratch, we will have to deal with runny noses and potty training and jobs and family and bills and all the things God throws our way so we will lean on him and not rest in the hope of not having to deal with life so we can start a school.

Also, I thought about the Israelites ignoring Joshua and Caleb, who trusted they could go in the land and take it. Sure, there were some who were scared of the giants in the land. But they also had other worries about day-in and day-out life and they might have just not wanted to add to all these problems, Giants!!! So they rebelled by not trusting God.

May God give us all the hope of his faithfulness as we heap upon our already difficult lives, the dreams of spreading a vision for changing our communites and the nations so as to glorify the One Who is faithful.