Jesus Rescued Me

It has been nearly thirty years since Jesus rescued me. He looked on my utterly helpless estate as a teenage boy back in the piney woods of east Texas. I had endured sexual and a little physical abuse. I never knew the love of a father. One side of my family lived in generation after generation of sin. Out of that squalor God looked down on my helplessness and rescued me. He brought me out of the pit of destruction.

I have been thinking on that today after reading Luke 1:52, "He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted my humble estate." I came from nothing. Parts of my family still used an out house. I can recall my grandfather plowing with a mule. We were poor and I looked like a ragamuffin when I went to school. We lived for a season in the backwoods. When I say the backwoods I mean you had to drive down a long dirt road that dead ended into family land. Nobody but family went down that road. Suspicious cars would be met with the Edwards clan and loaded guns. There were awful things that happened down that road. Sexual abuse. Alcoholism. Incest. Physical abuse.

Out of what most assuredly looked like a dead end road to disaster Jesus Christ rescued me. He loved me, sought me, saved me, and rescued me to a whole new life. Nobody thought I would amount to much. God had other plans. He placed in me a passion to love and follow Him and a desire to be available to Him. He exalted me to a place of preaching His word and writing to minister to the hearts of people.

As I sit in this office I am pretty stunned at how God changed the whole trajectory of my life one cool October night back in 1983. I have never been the same. Sure I have sinned and strayed from the Lord. Even in those times He has sought me and rescued me all over again.

Where would I be if I had not met Jesus? I would not be in church. I would probably not have finished college. I would not still be writing and even if I did I would not have anything worthwhile to say. I would not have Brenda, Jennifer, Taylor, Tanner, Tucker, or Turner. Everything I have good in my life I owe to Jesus Christ. Everything bad in my life that God turns for good I owe to Jesus Christ. I feel like Paul when he wrote, "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." [Gal 6:14]

Out of my humble estate Jesus found me and rescued me. He has exalted me to a place of honor. He has given me a purpose. He has blessed me with a family like I never knew. He has guided my life for these past near thirty years. All I can do in return is say, "All I am is yours Jesus. Every single breath. Every dream. Every desire. Every day for the rest of my life is yours poured out like a drink offering." That is my offering of worship.