In late July 2002, nine Pennsylvania miners were trapped in the Quecreek mine. They had not been heard from in two days after 50 million gallons of water flooded the mine shaft. However, when a 6-inch air pipe was lowered into the chamber, the miners tapped on the pipe, but now the tapping had stopped. Those 9 miners had a problem of huge proportions, there was no way they could solve it from within the mine.
Rescuers began drilling down to the trapped miners, 240 feet below ground, but the first diamond tipped bit broke 80 feet down. It took 18 hours before a new bit could be installed and everyone feared the miners had been lost. Yet, when the tip broke through into the underground chamber, there were the miners, all alive. In actuality, the 18 hour delay allowed water to be pumped out of the chamber the miners were ultimately rescued in. Without the delay, the shaft would only have encountered a flooded mine.
Those miners had a problem they couldn’t handle. They had a tough question, “how can I escape from this flooded mine shaft?” An appropriate verse for them to thank the Lord would be NLT Psalm 18:16 He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters. And God can do the same for you in your problems. Each of us has problems in our lives, some not so big, others so big we’re not quite sure what to do. We want to answer the tough question “How Can I Overcome My Problems?” Now, as we’ll see, just like those miners, you’ll need some outside help to escape your problems.
To hear more about this topic, listen to my May 22, 2005 message entitled How Can I Overcome My Problems?