Caution Against Precaution

Sunday morning should have been a normal day. By all means it should have been just like the other 51 Sundays. I should have woken up, read my Bible, and gone to Antioch, followed by a nice turkey sandwich and then homework. But that’s the funny thing. Life doesn’t revolve around should haves, would haves, could haves.

On this particular Sunday I found myself sitting at my desk listening to New Hope Church’s online service for the second time in a row. My allergies were acting up so bad that I coined the term “sneezures” and convinced myself that it would be better to not go to Antioch that morning. It was in the middle of the sermon when an all too familiar sound reached my ear. Eeerrrrrcckkkkkk. I instantly knew what had happened. My mind quickly reverted back to nearly four months ago when that same sound struck a chord in me while I was standing on the roof of a hotel in Haiti. My mind quickly played over the numerous scenarios that could have just unfolded. And My mind quickly assumed the worst. Completely forgetting the service, I jumped onto my bed and peered out the window. Searching for any signs of the potential devastation, my head scanned back and forth across the street like a water sprinkler. After what seemed like eternity but was probably mere seconds my eyes locked onto the wreck. There it was. There lay the source of the all too familiar sound of screeching tires and the collision of metal objects. I instantly ran outside expecting to see the worse, but instead the most bizarre scene unfolded before my eyes. To my right there was a black car in seemingly perfect condition parked on the side of the street. In front of me though, lay a blue Honda Accord completely sitting on top of the sidewalk. But it only gets weirder. Now sweetly nestled to the front of the Accords bumper was the side panel of my friend Cameron’s truck.  Nestled to the other side of his truck was a Chevy Equinox. You see I know it will be very hard for you to envision this without a physical picture, but Cameron’s F-150 was snuggly parked in a parking lot over 10 feet away from the street before the accident. Apparently the black car had sideswiped the Accord, causing it to careen out of control (the screeching of the tires I heard) and forced it up and over a curb where it then finally rested after making contact with Cameron’s rear door. The Honda had traveled so far off of the road that it laid squarely on the solid concrete and grass mixture of the sidewalk.  Cameron’s truck should never have been in danger of being hit. His truck was separated from the asphalt of the road by a curb and 10 feet of sidewalk. The laws of physics would argue that his car would have been safe from wrecks. There must have been no way that a car could have slammed into his. He had done everything short of surrounding his car in a sea of foam.  And yet… there I was gaining an eye witness account of this peculiar incident.

No matter how many cautionary steps you take in life, you can NOT expect the unexpected, plan the implausible, nor formulate the grand enigmas of life.

Many of us find ourselves possessing a 5 year plan, a 401 K, and a detailed agenda for the next 24 hours. Some of us even emerged ourselves in a lifestyle of organization, security, and structure.  (Now I’m not arguing that these are bad, but I do think that the mere thought of them, once reflected upon, has a tinge of irony.) We spend our lives preparing for a world 50 years down the road and yet were not even guaranteed to wake up tomorrow.  We can’t predict the future, we shan’t even be so presumptuous as to think that we even could, and yet we attempt to construe and endless web of possible outcomes for our lives. We say that if X happens, we will take path Y; if Y happens then we will travel down the road of Z. If we major in Biology we can go to med school, then obtain a residency, an internship and then voila we can become a doctor.

 But you see, the more we try to formulate and structure our own lives the more we squeeze out God.

                Please hear me out. Plans for our life are in NO way, shape, or form bad for us. I’m not arguing that we should abandon any and all dreams. I’m merely advocating that when these plans, goals, and dreams become so rigid, so detailed, and so ordered that we leave no room for flexibility and find ourselves without enough space for God to be God. Instead of allowing him to lead us, we attempt to pull the Holy Spirit around like a dog on a leash. Instead of leaving space for miracles, we attempt to equate God to the modern day genie, hoping that he would grant our every desire at the snap of our fingers. Instead of letting the power of God transform us, our carefully ordered lives constrain his awe-fullness into the size of a box. But I’ll let you in on a little secret, no brick wall plans of ours are ever too thick for God to penetrate. Cameron (and I’m merely using him for the sake of a point not to insinuate that he is guilty of any of these managing tendencies) had thought that never in a million years would his truck of been involved in a non parking lot accident when his car was stationary in a parking lot! I thought that never in a million years would I have become anything other than a doctor.  Cameron had strategically placed his car off of the road. I had carefully laid out the next 11 years of my life. Cameron fully expected to go out to his car, hop in, drive off to Acts Church, and then go to McAllister’s for lunch. I fully expected to go to Baylor, major in Biology, get accepted into med school, and become a doctor. But one of the few funny things in life is that our plans automatically give way to Gods. If God wanted Cameron to not fulfill his Sunday plans, then Cameron had no choice but to comply. If God wants me to become a pastor, as opposed to a doctor, then who am I to argue? Do I know all the secrets to life? Do I know all of the stars by name? Do I know all 248 muscles found in a caterpillars face? Do I know how to create life from dust? You get the idea.

                I write this blog to all of those whose worlds crumble when there “lives” collapse, to all of those who overstress at their future careers, to all of those who plan out the idea of buying a planner. If you don’t remember anything else that I have written, remember what I’m about to say. Never will your plans triumph over God’s, and never will God have room to work miracles, wonders, and revelations through your life if you continuously box him out like a center in the NBA. Know this, the best way to gain security and control of this life is to surrender it.

                “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”- Matthew 10:39