Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
    I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

• Jeremiah 31:3

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

• Romans 5:8

The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing.”

• Zephaniah 3:17

[Verse 1]
Comes a rainstorm, put your rubbers on your feet
Comes a snowstorm, you can get a little heat
Comes love, nothing can be done

[Verse 2]
Comes a fire then you know just what to do
Blow a tire, you can buy another shoe
Comes love, nothing can be done

[Bridge 1]
Don’t try hiding
‘Cause there isn’t any use
You’ll start sliding
When your heart turns on the juice

[Verse 3]
Comes a headache, you can lose it in a day
Comes a toothache, see your dentist right away
Comes love, nothing can be done

[Verse 4]
Comes a heatwave, you can hurry to the shore
Comes a summons, you can hide behind the door
Comes love, nothing can be done

[Verse 5]
Comes the measles, you can quarantine a room
Comes a mousey, you can chase it with a broom
Comes love, nothing can be done

[Bridge 2]
That’s all, brother
If you ever been in love
That’s all, brother
You know what I’m speaking of

[Verse 6]
Comes a nightmare, you can always stay awake
Comes depression, you may get another break
Comes love, nothing can be done
Comes love, nothing can be done
Comes love, nothing can be done!”

• Lew Brown and Charle Tobias (music by Sam H. Stept), Comes Love

This song is a 1939 jazz standard that got its start in the Broadway musical Yoke! Boy, starring Phil Silvers and Buddy Ebsen.  It has been recorded by a Who’s Who list of jazz singers.

I have tried to discuss this aspect of my experience in “coming to Christ.”

I was an Eagle Scout.  I could get things done.  But I had little Joy in my life.  My parents moved back to my old hometown, and I went back to school with people I had been in school with just three years prior, but the gap from 13-16 is filled with change.

But those people had Joy and I did not.  This was the Holy Spirit at work, both in my parents moving and me recognizing what I was missing.

For over a year, I said the salvation prayer every night.  I read the Scriptures.  … Nothing.

I was sinking deeper and deeper into depression, because all my efforts did not work, not at all.

Then one night I refused to say the salvation prayer.  I surrendered to God.  I simply gave up “trying” to be saved.  And I thought I heard a voice saying, “That’s what I have been waiting for.”

How do we become saved?  As one person on a local Christian TV channel says, “God is pursuing you.  Stop and turn around.  (in other words, turn from your sin).”

But that year of torment, more like 14 months, was God telling me that He had not given up on me.  He was still pursuing me.  And when I finally stopped running away, He would catch me.

It’s like this song, Comes Love, anything else, you can fix one way or another, but when God’s Love is concerned, He loves you so much, He will pursue you to the end.

Sure, we have a free will, but at that moment over 55 years ago, I look back at my wrecked life and I made the only “choice” that made sense.

I’m an engineer by education.  Engineers fix things.  This song is in my wheelhouse.  Give me the tools, I can fix it.  But God does the saving.  God does the pursuing.  Just stop running away and surrender.

Here is Ella Fitzgerald singing Comes Love.  I had a lot to choose from, but I seem to hear Ella’s lyrics more clearly.

Do you think that you can outrun God?  Think again.  Sooner or later, you have to stop to take a breather.  God takes no one unwillingly, but with a relentless pursuer, sometimes it’s easier to accept getting caught.  And you will suddenly understand the Joy of knowing God.  You will never want to look back.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.