Extreme athlete Beatriz Flamini has broken the world record for the number of days spent isolated in a cave. 500 days! She described her experience as excellent and unbeatable.
Now 50 years old, she entered the 230-foot deep cave at age 48, spending her time exercising, drawing and knitting woolly hats. She consumed 60 books and 1,000 liters of water.
Flamini was monitored by a group of psychologists, researchers, speleologists—specialists in the study of caves—but none of the experts made contact with her.
One of the toughest moments came when there was an invasion of flies inside the cave, leaving her covered, she said. Perhaps tougher were what she described as hearing and thinking auditory hallucinations.
“You are silent and the brain makes it up,” she reports. Experts have been using her time in isolation to study the impact of social isolation and extreme temporary disorientation.
Who would volunteer for such solitary confinement? Actually, we all are trying to hide from something.
In the Bible, Jonah tried to hide from God, who had assigned him to preach to Nineveh. He boarded a ship headed the opposite direction, and then hid below deck. Aaaaaaand … God found him.
Actually, God knew where he was the whole time. Better than that. God was with him the whole time. ‘Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’” (Jeremiah 23:24).
It’s as if God chased Jonah, wherever he went. And that’s good news. We have a God who pursues us, seeks our souls, finds us when we’re lost, watches us when we’re lonely, guards us when we’re afraid, and came all the way from heaven to die for us. No other god in no other religion reaches out with such faithful, patient mercy in an unconditional interest of grace.
So stop hiding. Instead of running from God, run to God. “The name of the Lord is a fortified tower, the righteous run to it and are safe” (Proverbs 18:10).
PRAYER: Find me in your forgiveness, Lord. As if I can hide from you, but you say that I can’t. That’s your grace, and I need it. Your pursuing, seeking, understanding, merciful grace finds me every day. Help me stop trying to hide, and instead pursue you. Amen.
MEDITATION: Enjoy this song by Christian artist Matt Redman called Your Grace Finds Me. It explores all kinds of moments, experiences and seasons of life where the God of grace is faithful, and maybe we didn’t realize it.