Being arrested is part of life. It has to do with learning, deciding, going in the right direction. If a man was never arrested he likely wouldn’t learn much. Interestingly, our word “arrest” comes from a Latin term restare, which means to stand back. We have made the word mean something more than that. We use it to mean a charge. You can see the connection. When a man is arrested, he is charged to stand where he is.

Life has a way of lulling us into a state of relative indifference. We go along, day by day, doing the things we do almost as a matter of routine and sometimes without much thinking. Some things about that are good, but not everything. We can become indifferent regarding our spiritual needs if we are not careful. Sometimes it takes some drastic turn of events to shock us out of that indifference and back to reality.

Your own sickness can arrest you. It wakes a fellow up when the doctor says, “We’re not sure, but this could be something serious.” All of a sudden all the things we thought were so important are not so important at all. We have been arrested. Suddenly, we are more inclined to prayer than we’ve been for a long time. We are more disposed to spiritual thinking, more likely to think about our relationship to God. And we may even give some thought to judgment and whether or not we are ready for such an eventuality.

The sickness of a loved one can arrest you. We are more likely to face our own mortality when we learn of the serious illness of a friend or family member. “Your mother is very ill,” the doctor says. We are suddenly arrested. All of a sudden we are not so concerned about that fishing trip or golf game. They pale into relative insignificance. We are given to more serious matters, to the considerations of what really matters.

The death of a friend or brother can arrest you. There’s that awful phone call. You stand frozen in the moment as your wife says, “Oh, no! when?” You know. Something’s wrong. Still in shock, she hangs up the phone and says, “He died. He just suddenly keeled over and died.” You’ve been arrested. Suddenly the numbing reality of death takes over. Its chilling effect reaches to the innermost parts of your soul. “How could it be?” you wonder. And “it could happen to me, too,” you think with a shiver. Yes sir, you’ve been arrested.

Some trauma in your life can arrest you. The police have called. “There must be some mistake,” you say, “my son wouldn’t do something like that.” But there is no mistake. It’s him. You’ve worked hard—so has she—to raise your kids right. Oh sure, you’ve had your ups and downs, but all in all, he’s always been a pretty good kid. Now look at him. Jail! In my family? How could it be? You’ve been arrested, too, you know. Now what is important is not whether or not he was popular, whether or not he wore the right brands, the right kind of shoes. Now, it’s greater matters, more significant things, things like spirituality and holiness, that are important. It’s a hard way to be arrested, this way.

Everybody is arrested from time to time. And it’s important how we handle such arrests. If we react by becoming bitter then the arrest has not served us well. If we react by becoming angry, we have not used the occasion to learn. And if we react by trying to justify some action instead of turning the arrest into a good thing we are foolish indeed.

“The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12 LBX). Its purpose is to arrest man, to bring him to his senses, so to speak, to cause him to ponder right things and make better choices. The people on Pentecost heard the word and were “pricked in their hearts” (Acts 2:37 LBX). They were arrested by it. It is God’s will that His word arrest people—it’s what takes them to the cross, and ultimately, to their own salvation.

Let the word of God do its work in your life.

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