After visiting our children and grandchildren in El Paso, we were driving through utter darkness to a remote place in Arizona. Black-tailed jackrabbits, which can leap up to twenty feet, kept bounding in front of our car. Chuck kept swerving, at seventy-five miles per hour, to miss hitting the jackrabbits. The one time we encountered oncoming cars, I asked Chuck to stop swerving. There was an immediate, jolting ker-thump.

Finally, we reached the dirt road that led to our cottage. Chuck parked by the fence and gate that kept out the big critters. He used his flashlight to make sure he wasn’t stepping on rattlesnakes. We found the cottage locked. No cell or internet service.
We drove to a little town that had a phone booth but no phone. No cell or internet service there either. We drove to the next closest town. A woman named Debbie, who ran Rodeo Tavern, was to have unlocked our cottage. The tavern was closed. No cell service outside the tavern either.
Finally, we found a campground with a pay phone. After much dithering with the very drunk campground manager, we got through to someone, who got through to Debbie, who unlocked the cottage.
Outside the cottage, Chuck got out of the car and stepped on a tarantula. He used the flashlight to make sure he did not step on rattlesnakes as he opened the cottage. I got out of the car, in the dark, with our bag. Chuck was returning to the car when he let out something he swears was not a scream. I thought there must be a rattlesnake at my feet but didn’t know whether to flee or freeze. Chuck, however, had shone the flashlight directly on the front of the car—where a dead two-foot jackrabbit was dangling from the grill.
During our otherwise delightful weekend in Arizona, I wondered what I should do if Chuck got bit by a rattlesnake. I had already told him to let me go, but I wasn’t about to offer him the same courtesy. We spent one of our days hiking the sky islands with a guide. When I learned that our guide was an EMT, I asked what we should do—in light of not having phone or internet service anywhere—if Chuck got bit by any of the nine local rattlesnakes, including the highly venomous Mojave rattler. He grinned and held up his radio. “Just radio and we’ll have a helicopter take him to the hospital, which is an hour away.” Of course, we had no radio.
We were, it seemed, incommunicado.
As God’s children, however, we are never incommunicado. After being attacked by the Serpent, Christ became the bronze serpent, lifted up, so everyone can look and live. Because Christ was utterly forsaken on the cross, we can confidently “draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). We don’t just have a radio that can bring a helicopter swooping in for a temporary rescue. Prayer brings the might and mercy of God in an eternal rescue.