His Voice Through the Smoke

When the fire alarm shrieked at 2:47 a.m., six-year-old Lily Chen couldn't see anything. Smoke filled the upstairs hallway of their Cedar Rapids bungalow, black and thick and burning her eyes. She clutched her stuffed rabbit and pressed herself against the bedroom wall, too terrified to move.

Then she heard it — her father's voice cutting through the roar.

"Lily! Come to me! Follow my voice!"

She couldn't see the stairs. She couldn't see the door. But she knew that voice better than any sound on earth. So she dropped to her hands and knees and crawled toward it, one small hand reaching forward into the darkness, then the next.

"Keep coming, Lily. I'm right here."

His voice was her walls. His voice was her direction. His voice was the only solid thing in a world that had turned to smoke and heat and chaos. And when his strong arms finally scooped her up on the landing and carried her into the cold February air, she buried her face against his neck and whispered, "I found you, Papa."

She hadn't found a building. She hadn't found a bunker. She had run to a name — the one name that meant safety since the day she was born.

The writer of Proverbs understood this. "The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." When the smoke fills your life and you cannot see the next step, you do not need a map. You need a Name. And the name of Yahweh, El Shaddai, Jehovah Shalom — that Name has never failed anyone who ran toward it.