A Congressman Swims to Shore, A Woman Doesn't Come Home

A congressman is alive this morning. This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Charles King. Saturday night, just before nine, a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza lost power on approach to Wausau Downtown Airport in Wisconsin. On board: Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor, and his pilot, retired Air Force officer Leonard Boltz. Boltz turned to Tiffany and said, "We are going down. Pull your seat belt tight." About ten seconds later, they hit Lake Wausau. They climbed onto the plane. When it started to sink, they swam. Somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty feet, until the water was shallow enough to stand. Boltz called nine-one-one. A fire department airboat pulled them out. Tiffany took twelve stitches above his right eye. Boltz took four. Both men walked out of that lake alive. Tiffany told reporters yesterday, "We're really fortunate that God was looking after us last night." Here is where a Christian has to think carefully. It is right to thank God for deliverance. But somewhere this weekend, another plane went down, and no one climbed out. God was no less good in that lake. Job said it this way. "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Job one, verse twenty-one. That verse does not explain everything. It refuses to. But it guards us from a shallow theology that only sees God when things go our way. If you want to sit with that tension today, open Job chapter one in Bible Copilot and read it slowly. To Pennsylvania. A forty-year-old woman in Jefferson County has died from measles complications. She was unvaccinated. It is the third measles-related death the state has reported this year. No other state has reported any. Pennsylvania has logged six hundred seventy-six cases so far in twenty twenty-six. Fifty-two came in a single three-day window last week. Nationwide, the CDC counts more than three thousand two hundred confirmed cases of a disease this country declared eradicated in the year two thousand. There is also a public fight between state officials and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior over whether earlier deaths should be counted. That is the headline. Here is the human part. A family in Jefferson County is planning a funeral. Pray for wisdom today before you repeat what you have heard. Scripture takes the body seriously. Paul writes in First Corinthians six, "Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit." Christians will land in different places on public health debates. The dignity of the person we bury does not depend on where we landed. One more. Sixty Minutes last night aired the story of a U.S. Air Force weapons officer, callsign Dude Forty-Four Bravo, whose plane was shot down over Iran in April. He ejected. He evaded Iranian forces for two days. He was recovered alive. He called his survival a modern-day miracle. Practice for today. Thank God for one specific mercy you almost missed. This episode is presented by Bible Copilot. Open Bible Copilot and study today's Verse of the Day, Job one, verse twenty-one. It will guide you through what Job said, what it meant in his grief, what it teaches about God's character, and how to carry it into a week like this one. Three questions a day are free. Start at mybiblecopilot dot com slash gospel. That's mybiblecopilot dot com slash gospel, or search Bible Copilot in the App Store. "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." A congressman swam to shore. A woman in Pennsylvania did not come home. A pilot ejected over Iran and lived. God is God in all three. Our job is to bless His name in all three. Thanks for listening. I'll see you tomorrow.