Banana Peels or Bonanzas

 

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good . . . (Genesis 50:20)

 

       I once had in my file a cartoon someone had sent me from The Wall Street Journal showing two thieves coming out of a bank, loot in hand, heading toward their getaway car. It was sitting on blocks, having been stripped by local hoodlums while the thieves were robbing the bank. Whoops! Our best laid plans often go astray. We can’t arrange our lives perfectly.

       The Bible tells the story of Joseph, sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. He worked hard and became head of his master’s household. Soon his abilities brought him to the attention of the king, and he was made administrator of the national food bank in a time of famine. One day his brothers showed up, wanting food. Their lives had been imperfect too. Joseph chose the high road and provided them the help they needed. The evil they had intended—and the hard times he had endured as a result—had nonetheless been converted into something good.

       There are surprises throughout our lives that we can’t possibly foresee—flukes and pitfalls, blue skies and earthquakes, flowers and tidal waves. Doors close and then swing open, and we don’t know why. My e-mail today may contain a beautiful poem from a friend or a destructive virus from a stranger. We do well to take Joseph’s path, to look for the best and highest purpose open to us, whatever may occur.

God doesn’t lay banana peels on the sidewalk or cause the accidents resulting from our stepping on them. Neither does God cause us to scratch off the right numbers on the lottery ticket. Those things just happen. What God does do, however, is to fill our lives with his Spirit, enabling us to meet whatever comes with grace and good will. To do so is to practice the presence of God who intends good for us—and through us—whatever circumstances may come our way.

 

 Another Road

 

So he took another road and did not return by the way he had come to Bethel. (1 Kings 13:10)

            Deep in the pages of the Old Testament is a fascinating little story about an unnamed prophet who traveled to Israel in a period of great difficulty and delivered a strong message. He was a foreigner, and his harsh words were vexing to the cruel king. Being no fool, the prophet had a sense that danger awaited him on his journey home. “So,” we are told, “he took another road and did not return by the way he had come.”

            Our subdivision is located near a major east-west artery, the only means of access to or from our house. Watching the busy traffic on that road prompts me occasionally to ask what other means of escape we might have in a time of crisis. What alternate routes are available to us? We can’t go more than one block before we must get on the highway that everyone else uses too. While there’s no immediate threat to our calm little neighborhood, still it’s discomfiting to think there’s only one exit.

            Several years ago on a day off I drove from Raleigh, North Carolina into South Carolina. I could have used the interstate but chose instead to take old Highway 1. It was a slower but far more interesting route, and I enjoyed wending my way through smaller cities that I might otherwise never have seen: Apex, Sanford, Southern Pines, Rockingham. “Another road” provided a pleasant day of sightseeing on my journey.

Alternate routes are good for life’s journey too. Bob, a recent acquaintance, having been laid off in his mid-fifties from his accounting job, decided this was an opportunity to take another road and pursue a lifelong dream of a career in music. I’ve had clients and parishioners too who would like to try something new but who, unlike Bob, were afraid to leave the highway on which they were coasting along. They stayed in cruise control for too long and let the lease expire on their motivation, technical know-how, ambition or curiosity. Inertia took over. They stayed on the familiar road and could no longer imagine any other. 

The story of the foreign prophet does not end happily, for he changed his mind and returned to the common highway, and then—well, something about a lion and a tomb. When his crisis arose, this man chose familiarity over risk, abandoning his newly chosen road home.

 

It's okay to try another road. Find your alternatives....Check the map....Recalculate the GPS....Refresh the resume....Make the plan....And trust God to go with you.

 

 

Copies of Mike's book, You Are Rich: Discovering Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of 60 faith-related reflections, is available through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Stiff-Necked

 

And the Lord said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed!” (Deuteronomy 9:13)

 

        I have a theory as to why American auto makers fell so far behind their foreign competition in the 1970s and 80s. Detroit (I lived there at the time) was an isolated island of American car companies. Its residents were mostly company employees with incentives to buy the cars they had made. As company executives drove to work every morning, they saw no problem. They had heard of thousands of imports arriving in California ports but saw only Fords and Chevys around them, so things must be okay. Everything on the roads they traveled had been made by them.

         The Bible uses the wonderful expression “stiff-necked” to describe a refusal to see beyond one’s nose, to interpret reality only in terms that make one comfortable. It is to be set in our ways, stubbornly to deny that we might have more to learn or that change might be necessary and beneficial. We tense up our shoulders, tighten our jaw and dig in our heels. We retreat deeper into our island of denial while the competition—or new opportunity—runs by us.

        We clergy can be stiff-necked. We follow, each of us, the counsel of voices with which we are familiar or comfortable. The hottest trend in ministry or the current book from the latest expert becomes our focus. “This is the way,” we say. “Growth in the church will surely follow this pattern,” we convince ourselves. So desperate are we to be a “difference-maker” (a term currently fashionable in ministerial ranks) that we tune out other voices, resist possibilities peripheral to our vision. I encountered such a colleague recently…stiff-necked, certain that his plans for his congregation are the only way to save its future. In fact, his stubborn resistance to any alternative may be the cause of its demise.

 

    Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the great English philosopher, said, “If a man will begin with certainties, he will end with doubt. But if he will begin with doubt, it is certain that he will end with certainties.” I’ve been discovering that. As I sit loose in the saddle…as I regard the questions of life to be more important than the answers…as I stay open to the possibility that I may be wrong—in matters both great and small—I find a growing faith and a deepening sense of assurance.

        The healthy soul will listen to new ideas without feeling insecure. The winning spirit is open to what’s next without becoming defensive. Effective persons don’t suffer stiff necks.


Copies of Mike's book, You Are Rich: Discovering Faith in Everyday Moments, a collection of faith related reflections, are available through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.