Yesterday was a trip through hell. Lots of last minute changes, scheduling hassles, clear commitments made with no real intention of being kept, mass bungling, and wrong information. If I normalize the time, from my 11:30 pm wake-up the night before until I hit the bed at 10:30 last night, very little went according to schedule. By the end the politeness of it all got to me.
The most common words followed a standard introduction line. “We are very sorry, but.”
At the end of it all I was fed, had a bed to sleep on, and was too tired to do much of anything. A final touch came when my phone rang at midnight with the coordinator of it all trying to answer my questions of 8 pm. Sleep came so quickly I do not recall now what she had to say; I think and hope I was polite!
Many days feel just like this trip. Stressed chaos with broken promises. I freely admit that I am a major protagonist in the problems. Life is what life is. There are many who struggle to make the best decisions they know how to at the time. Yet, life continues to throw curve balls with an occasional one aimed at the head. Sometimes the hits are malicious, other times they are merely the result of a myriad of people interacting without understanding the ultimate end-to-end impact.
I have two choices. Hunker down in my own abilities and cocoon or place all my bets with God. Anything else will just not work! People often think the only reason to work with God is so that you can get something from him at the end. I think this is just another form of trying to do it on your own; a grand attempt to manipulate God for your own purposes. “[I’m] they’re holding on, not because of what [I] they think [I’m] they’re going to get out of it, but because [I’m] they’re convinced of God’s grace and purpose in choosing them.” (Romans 11.6)
God’s the answer.
