If you were trapped 2,300 ft below ground, what would YOU ask for?

What have the 33 trapped Chilean miners asked for?

Some things you would very much expect.
Letters from loved ones. Medicines. Tooth paste and brushes.
Food including vitamin drinks and oranges.
Entertainment: a games console and a pack of dice.
A camera – to make a personal record.

And two other things also.
Signed Barcelona football shirts and Bibles.
I can understand the Bibles. When you are caught between life and death; especially when that is below ground, getting in touch with God, by whose almighty power Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, seems a wise thing to do. But why, when you are caught between life and death, would you want a signed football shirt?

Perhaps as a warmer? Perhaps to give you hope as you look forward to what you team might win. Perhaps because to wear the shirt helps you forget your worries as you remember what your team has done. But it's still only a shirt. If it has any meaning it's only in what you give it. A shirt cant even stand up unless you hold it up. Someone somewhere takes the raw materials and shapes them into a shirt – in the form of a man, of a man in all his glory but it has no life without a man. It carries words but it cannot speak. It has arms but it cannot lift. Is it not essentially empty.

The Bible is a library of words but to read it is to converse with the living word. The Bible is an open way to the God who raises people from the dead. It is the speaking voice of God. Can a shirt, even a football shirt, declare what will be? But the Lord has declared the future from the past, and what He has said, He will do. Whether trapped in a mine, or trapped in suffering above ground, there is no condemnation, no going down instead of coming up, for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Christians, whether stuck in a mine or stuck in life, are encouraged to remember that present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that is to come. So we invite you to let go of your trust in the things of this life, and instead put your trust in Jesus.