A number of years ago, my wife and I were visiting dear friends in Yaak, MT. If you have not heard of the place don’t feel bad. It is seven miles from the Canadian border and the state line of Idaho. It is made up of a mercantile/café laundromat, and the Dirty Shame Saloon. There are not a lot of people in the region and the residents like it that way. God planted the town in the middle of the Rocky Mountains in possibly the most scenic location imaginable. Our friends were in the process of transitioning to the area as part of their retirement plan and part of their ministry vision to fully establish a local church in the area. Yaak was forty miles from the nearest town.
The weeks we were with them are some of
the most memorable of my life. Along with some construction, we had plenty of
play time to do some R&R. All day four-wheeling on the fire and logging
roads were amazing. We ended up at breathtaking mountain vistas and hidden
melted snow lakes nestled in between. The wildlife was abundant, and the people
were not. It was rare to come across anyone else on the trails -- except the
rare sighting of a border guard and DEO official -- at a time when this was considered
important in law enforcement. The temperatures were hot in the daytime (100+)
and the evenings were cool (40’s). So one wilted in the day time in the “Big
Sky” country and pulled on an extra blanket in the evening. Evening was a perfect
time for huckleberry milk shakes and stretching the mussels cramped from the
bumpy off road trails.
One day we decided we could take a
leisurely float down the Yaak River. Near the mercantile the river was pretty
placid and flowed past our friend’s ranch. It was not many miles and the river
was reasonably warm in the first three feet from the surface. Below that it was
a bit breath taking. At church on Sunday, we asked if anyone had inner tubes to
aid us in our adventure of floating the Yaak. The puzzled look should have been
a warning that this did not happen often, if at all. After discussion the local
folks suggested we see a local down the road who had some spare innertubes. The
next day we paid him a visit and he took us to a back shed. There was a pile of
mostly deflated tubes. Here was another warning we overlooked in our enthusiasm
for this adventure. We borrowed them and took them back to the ranch to inflate
them. It looked like they would hold air, so after lunch we launched. Probably
a couple hundred yards after the mercantile was out of sight, we noticed tiny
bubbles rising from the bottom of the inner tubes. We also noticed we were
getting lower in the water. Not a good sign!
We paddled faster to get closer to our
planned exit point, but we were now really dragging in the water. We looked for
an exit strategy along the steep banks and decided to “abandon tubes” as we
approached a spot in the woods that had little undergrowth. Walking barefoot is
not pleasant for tender feet. Thankfully, Facebook did not exist, and no
incriminating evidence was posted of four adults walking gingerly over the
forest floor! What a lesson to learn. Do not rely on the unreliable!
Our experience is not unlike what others
have faced. We put our trust in things that that are untrustworthy. How many
have trusted a get rich scheme only to lose a fortune? How many have trusted a
leader only to find he is a charlatan? How many have trusted a political system
or party and discover they are no better that the party one has distained? How
many have trusted a religious leader who sounds like they can be trusted and
soon discover they are corrupt and exists for personal gain or glory? In the
Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah, laments over the state of the nation for
their foolishness in following the unreliable and ignoring their reliable God. They
are in peril. Jerusalem has fallen. What they had relied upon rather than God
has betrayed them -- “There is no one left to help her [Israel]. All her
friends have betrayed her; they are now her enemies… she lies in the gutter
with no one to lift her out… I begged my allies for help, but they betrayed me…
Others heard my groans, but no one turned to comfort me… (Lamentations 1:2, 9,
19). Jeremiah adds that even spiritual leaders were unreliable, “Your
‘prophets’ have said so many foolish things, false to the core. They did not
try to hold you back from exile by pointing our sins. Instead, they painted
false pictures, filling you with false hopes” (2:14). A sad state of affairs
for the nation and any other people who think that relying upon God and His
direction is insufficient for their lives. What we rely upon other than God
often betrays us. When we need help, they are helpless.
Jeremiah realizes as one person summarizes,
“Governments rise and fall; economies crumble; even spiritual leaders disappoint
us. But the Lord’s mercies never fail.” (The Daily Walk Bible). Thus, he
lifts his eyes and concludes boldly and confidently with tears streaming down
his face, “The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great
is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.” (3:22-23 NLT). Have
you made the realization that our God is reliable! Has that reality given birth
to trust in Him rather than in that which is unreliable? We can trust our God; He
will hold us up!
