Five Minutes From Death… Good morning Hump Day readers. Yes, my title for today’s devotion seems ominous, but don’t let that stop you from reading on or you will miss quite the episode from our week here at the campground! So, let me begin…

Our society has adopted the fact that truths are what you want them to be, and rules curtail your fun in life. This last week is a picture of these words. Our campground closes at 10pm, then we head down to our RV. This night, at 10:30pm the campground phone rang. At first I thought, “crap, it’s after 10pm, I’m not picking it up.” Struggling with sciatica, the last thing I wanted to do was get up again—yet I felt a nudge that wouldn’t go away. I told Al, “I have to pick up that phone!” I answered and immediately could hear screams in the background and my knees went weak. The lady said they were struggling in the water and she was sure they were going to drown. Al called our ranger who was just going off duty and the two of them worked like a well-oiled machine, getting out the big boat and emergency items. The police were called and the rescue was on. It was dark and hard to find them but with dogged persistence, they found them. The man was trying to hold the woman up but they were both struck with hypothermia and were delirious. The man had enough strength to grab the ring and they hauled the two of them in and got them to the boat ramp where paramedics and police were waiting. The paramedics went to work and told Al and our ranger that they were “5 minutes from death.” Our ranger turned to Al and said, “do you realize we saved two people from dying tonight?”

The sad part of this is: they had NO life-jackets which is the law on the water, they were compromised by either drugs or alcohol which are not allowed on Army Corp of Engineers parks and lakes; and had been out there for 3 hours with cheap inflatable kayaks that are not advised for deep water but, there they were—close to 100’ feet deep on the water in the dark! Outside of almost dying, they were given 4 Federal fines to pay. These people didn’t like our rules and forgot the truth that cold water and the inability to swim can be deadly.

All this got me thinking about Paul Harvey’s famous “Rest of the Story” newscast called If I Were the Devil. Here is one paragraph that reminded me of the almost-drowning episode: “… If I were the Prince of Darkness, I’d want to engulf the whole world in darkness. And I’d have a third of its real estate, and four-fifths of its population, but I wouldn’t be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree…so I’d set about however necessary to take over the United States. I’d subvert the churches first—I’d begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: ‘Do as you please.’  

As we approach the celebration of our Independence Day, I shudder to think what our founding fathers would say with how we have adopted an attitude of “I’m going to do as I please.” Even more so, I can feel God’s tears when we flaunt his warnings. The Bible warns us of attitudes and activities to stay away from, yet how seriously do most of us follow biblical counsel? God’s cautions are for our good, and ignoring His guidance and commands opens us up to being misled, and that can put us to “5 minutes from death.”

The Apostle Peter’s 2nd letter (2:1-2 ERV) tells us: “In the past there were false prophets among God’s people. It is the same now. You will have some false teachers in your group. They will teach things that are wrong—ideas that will cause people to be lost. And they will teach in a way that will be hard for you to see that they are wrong. They will even refuse to follow the Master who bought their freedom. And so they will quickly destroy themselves. Many people will follow them in the morally wrong things they do. And because of them, others will say bad things about the way of truth we follow.”

As campground hosts, Al and I see both the good and the bad. Mostly it is good, but when folks skirt the rules and come close to dying, our hearts weep. We’ve all done dumb stuff but if you continue to do it the outcome could be deadly. The farther away from God we become, we will at some time, come closer to “5 minutes from death.” We need a wake-up call to avoid our stupid actions which, sadly encourages others to do the same. It’s time to stop “doing as we please” and return to pleasing the God who created us and loves us even in our dumbest moments! AMEN.