Don't Drop Me

There’s a local story of a guy named Randy Reid, a 34-year-old construction worker welding on top of a water tower. He unhooked his safety harness to reach for some pipes when a metal cage slipped and bumped the scaffolding he stood on. The scaffolding tipped, and Reid lost his balance. He fell 110 feet, landing face down on a pile of dirt, barely missing rocks and construction debris. A coworker immediately called 911.

When paramedics arrived, they found Reid conscious, moving, and complaining of a sore back. As they carried him on a backboard to the ambulance, he called out: "Don’t drop me!” Doctors later said Reid came away from the accident with just a bruised lung.

He just fell 110 feet and came away with virtually no injuries. And yet, while being carried by two strong paramedics, hoisted only two and a half feet above the ground, he was concerned he might fall. Two and a half feet? Really? I have a feeling he was just expressing his also uninjured sense of humor.

But that is so like us. When you think of it, the really big stuff has been taken care of for us. We’ve been delivered from the guilt of our sin, from God’s righteous anger against our willful rebellion against Him. We had it coming.

But He absorbed what we deserved when He died on the cross. Our greatest need was reconciliation with our Creator and He took care of that. He gave us what we desperately needed: new spiritual life, available because of His resurrection. He released us from humanity’s greatest fear: death. He defeated it altogether!

He forgave us, released us from slavery, gave us a new and eternal life, and brought us into a parent-child relationship with God….and guaranteed our ultimate home in heaven with the gift of His Holy Spirit!

Then we worry about the mortgage on our pile of deteriorating sticks we will be staying in for a few years, or whether or not we will have enough for twenty or so years of retirement, or whether or not our dying bodies will remain healthy (they won’t).

It’s like we just fell 110 feet with virtually no injuries, and while being hoisted a couple feet in the air, are worried about falling. I wonder if God ever chuckles.

“He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).