Running to Disaster

My eyes jump wide open as the alarm tone disrupts my sleep, and I feel my pulse rate increase. As the disorientation clears, I wonder what it will be this time; car accident, house fire, water rescue, or a small child not responding? This scenario played out many times as I spent 30 years running to disaster. As I reflect back on all the sleepless nights and the people that I met in their disaster, I am always thankful to God for allowing me the opportunity to help a stranger in their time of need. 

Why did I choose that career? Why did I choose a job that could have altered or ended my own life at any time to save someone else’s? Did I choose it, or did it choose me? What drives First Responders to do what they do? It can’t be the meager compensation, the working holidays, or the long hours away from their family. There has to be something deeper, something that goes beyond the work itself. I always believed, and still do, that it is a God-given desire, gift, or talent. I always viewed it as an opportunity to serve God and mankind. 

John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

Is running to disaster about love? How could it be? I didn’t know those that I was running to help. They were strangers. I ran anyway. Was I running to their disaster out of love, or was it because God loved them and wanted them to be helped? Was I the willing participant that God gifted with the ability to send? 

I believe it is about love more significant than I could ever give in my human form. When we choose to run to disaster, regardless of our role, it is because a greater love exists. God loves people and decides to send help, and that help can come in many forms. 

Today, I sit in an air-conditioned office at a drug and alcohol recovery ministry. I witness men and women arrive daily looking for an answer that could rescue them from their addiction, their own personal disaster. They are searching for someone willing to help them in their time of need. They are strangers looking for something to permanently transform their life. I find myself still running to disaster. Why? God loves people, and a greater love exists.

-Darrell Garrett