Consider the Panama Canal—a modern marvel. It took 75,000 workers 12 years to dig 10 miles to create the Panama Canal, the water gates that join the Atlantic and the Pacific.    Although the locks are a generous 110 feet wide, the largest of the vessels that pass through, called Panamax, have just one foot to spare on either side!  So there are plans for expansion underway.   Good thing, because every year, between 12,000 and 15,000 ships go through the Panama Canal!

But here's the stat that blows my mind.  A boat traveling from New York to San Francisco that travels through the Canal saves a staggering 7,872 miles (nearly one third of the circumference of the entire globe!).    

Creating this convenience has come at a price.   When the canal opened in 1914, it did so at a cost of 375 million dollars (that's 8.9 billion in today's money).  At the time, it was the single most expensive construction project in U.S. History.  And it was also extremely costly in terms of human life—with more than 5,600 workers perishing from disease or accident.   That's more than one death every day for more than a decade!

Allow me to grab the rudder of this little blog and steer the ship into a hard turn. 

Consider the extraordinary price that Jesus paid when He came to earth.   Like the land mass that separated the Atlantic from the Pacific, our sin stood between us and God—“uncrossable.”

In choosing to die a horrific death in our place, Jesus made possible the ultimate passage: from earth to heaven…from death to life.   But perhaps like the Panama Canal, the story has grown so familiar, we've lost our sense of awe.  Time to get it back.

Grace—the kind that bids us cross from death to life—is inexplicably costly. 

He said, “Ask God to open doors for you to walk through with your unsaved loved ones.”

Dr. Jim Coakley had no idea of the adventure his wise counsel was about to help unleash.

For years, now, we have been praying for a small list of people who need to come to Christ: neighbors, friends, relatives.  My commitment is to keep praying for these lost people until I die--or they die.   No kidding.  But since we started praying the prayer Jim recommended—that God would open up doors of opportunity--life has revved into high gear.

Example A

For years, we have prayed for Sam, a great guy, a helpful neighbor who happens to be gay.  Though we've spent time together socially, we had always wanted to have Sam over at our house for dinner.  But it never happened—until.... 

My wife had made a beautiful pot roast with potatoes and carrots....fresh rolls.  As we looked out the window and noticed our neighbor, Sam, my wife suggested, “Ask him to come in.”  So I did.  That's when we offered him dinner...which he sat down to and ate hungrily. Sam stayed a long time, too. He agreed with us that coming over again would be a good idea. 

Example B

Though we've been friends at the surface level for years, we've never gone out to dinner with a couple I'll call Pete and Jackie.  Sensing what I thought  might be a Holy Spirit nudge, I simply asked this couple if we could treat them to dinner out.  Pete and Jackie accepted.  And despite the enormous differences between us (they are people of wealth and community standing) we had a spectacular time together.  And here's the kicker—THEY asked if we could do this again!

I still believe in the practice of daily prayer for these lost souls.  But I have to say, life has turned more adventurous since we started asking God to open doors of opportunity.  

Funny thing about doors, though. You and I have to knock first.  Only then does God seem to do the opening.

Praying for some lost people in your life?   I dare you—ask God to open some doors.  Then get ready for the adventure! 

It's one of those moments that make being a grandparent so grand.  At a community circus, my wife handed two-year old Lucy a wad of cotton candy.  The tot stared at it, then wrapped her pudgy fist around the pink tuft and—of all things--brushed it against her skin!  Back and forth she rubbed the soft pink cottony thing into her cheeks. 

Looking down, my wife saw what was going on and urged Lucy to eat the sugary treat.  Popping it into her mouth, Lucy registered an expression that validated her new delight with cotton candy's real purpose—it's supposed to be consumed!

Lucy's misappropriated cotton candy incident reminds me of a story told by Rev. Theo Asare, whose entire life is devoted to getting Africans to understand the Word of God in their own language (by all means visit theovision.org).   Theo once visited a fellow African who was at the beginning stages of constructing a new home.  In the wet cement foundation, this man had jammed a printed copy of the Bible.  When Theo asked him why he had done so, the man replied, “I want to build my home on the foundation of the Word of God.”

Like Lucy, this man (no doubt a skilled builder) had missed the point: the Bible is supposed to be consumed.  I wonder how many of us have missed the point when it comes to God's Word. 

We think we're so much further along in our Christian walk.  Yet many of us barely nibble at the Word of God.  And some of us get about as much out of the Bible as Lucy did her cotton candy when rubbed across her face. Worse yet, we’ve given the whole matter scant thought. 

But like cotton candy, the Bible is supposed to be consumed, internalized—not merely nibbled at.

Want to live a blessed life?  Really?   Here’s the formula in Psalm 1:2:  Be one of those who “delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.”

Let's stop merely reading the BIble. 

Let's consume it!!!

Searching for a living illustration of grace?  I would not normally recommend you climb aboard a Metra passenger train hauling self-absorbed commuters from the suburbs into Chicago.  But my friend, Jack, stumbled upon a refreshing scene on the train.

Jack, who has a knack for colliding with the unusual, was comfortably plopped into his seat aboard train #14 as it chugged eastbound toward a 6:44am arrival in the Windy City.  The car was already full, yet there were still more scheduled stops ahead. 

“So this guy is sitting there reading his Bible,” Jack tells me (Jack notices because Bible readers on the train are scarce, and also because he himself reads the Bible riding the rails).

“About then, the doors open and a lady gets on, but there's just no place for her to sit.”

“So what happened next?” I inquired. 

“Well this guy reading the Bible (who happens to be white) glances up and cranes his neck around.  He can see there are no seats and this poor lady (who happens to be black) is standing in the aisle.  So, he gets up and says to the lady, 'There's a seat right here for you, Ma’am.  Please—sit down,' pointing to his own seat."

“And did she take it?”

“At first she smiled awkwardly and politely refused his offer.  But the man insisted and so she finally sat down—thanking him for the kindness.” 

Nice scene.  Yet hardly earth shattering, I thought. But as usual, Jack had a different spin.

“Just think.  In the city of Chicago—a city bruised and bleeding over racial hurt, a white man gave up his seat to a black woman.  Nice statement.”

But when it comes to statements, it's tough to beat Jack's:

“Ya know, when folks live the Bible instead of just read the Bible---grace happens.”

As the wrangler pried open the 250 pound alligator's mouth, I was creeped out by the sight of so many teeth.  But that sensation paled compared to the visceral sound of its jaws snapping shut.

Imagine slamming an empty gallon-sized can as hard as you can on a cement driveway.  That's sort of the sound we heard at the Everglades Holiday Park in South Florida. 

Scientists tell us a human being can munch on a steak exerting between 150 and 200 pounds of pressure per square inch.  Animals such as hyenas, lions and tigers bite with a force of around 1,000 psi.

By contrast, scientists have measured alligators chomping force at well over 2000 pounds per square inch.  You heard me right.  Alligators have ten times the crunching power of people (and growing up, you thought getting bit by your baby brother was bad!). 

Despite its massive mandible, the alligator has a weakness.  This was carefully exploited by the reptile expert hosting the show.  As we watched, he easily (warily) kept the alligator's mouth closed with just one hand.  All that force, all that potential for destruction was kept in check by the hand of one man.

Impressive as all that number crunching really is (forgive the bad pun), the immense power of an alligator's mouth is nothing compared to yours.  Or mine. I do not refer here to pounds of pressure per square inch.  A better unit of measurement might be pounds of pain per square inch.  Or pounds of hurt per destructive word.

Such potential for evil as ours ought never to be left unattended. Perhaps our daily prayer should be that of David's in Psalms 141:3:  “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth.  Keep watch over the door of my lips.”

Only in living life this way can we safely say to the deadly beast within us, "See you later, alligator!"