Slip, Sliding Away

“Oh God, help us!”

I said these words recently with no plan or foresight, as the vehicle I was in spun out of control on the slick, snowy, country road we were on. Although we weren't traveling fast at all we were going off the road and down the embankment... and directly in front of us was a creek bed with several large old trees. It seemed certain that our skid would end in a rather dramatic stop against one of those trees since there didn't appear to be any other way for us to stop in time. But just before we careened down the side of the creek and into a tree trunk, our vehicle slowed and stopped. The whole experience took just seconds, even though it seemed to go on for a very long time. As I stepped out of the pickup, I saw that what had slowed us and stopped us eventually was a large log laying hidden in the ditch under the snow. A tire had caught the log, and been directed along it away from the creek... and a more violent stop was replaced by the gradual friction of tire against log. And so we sat with our vehicle just above the creek bed, safe and without any damage to us or the vehicle, but still firmly stuck!

How often do we involuntarily cry out to God for His help? I am going to venture a guess that when we do, it is almost always at a point of crisis in our lives. I heard myself saying the words that day, but I didn't plan to say them; I didn't think them through first; I didn't rationalize that there was nothing else I could do, so it was time to bring God into the equation. (Actually looking back I feel pretty good that those were the words that came out of my mouth at that point of crisis, and not some other ones!) My thought is though, that we might find it very easy – spontaneous even – to call out to God when we are in the middle of a crisis. How natural is it for us to look fully to Him when our lives are on a more normal pathway? Do we expect God to work miracles in our lives when we wake up on a beautiful morning feeling 100%? Do we call out to Him when we are making seemingly easy, no-brainer, decisions that don't appear to have any downsides? Shouldn't we?

On the other hand, how natural is it to accept what comes into our lives as from God, even when we don't see how it possibly could be from a loving, caring Father? (I was in a conversation recently with someone and we were talking about the fact that if we believe what we say we believe, we would never second guess our choices; we would never go the “woulda, shoulda, coulda” route; we wouldn't get frustrated by things not going the way we planned... ) Could we have accepted our circumstances if that log hadn't been there and we had gone into the creek and slammed into a tree? Would we have been at peace if there hadn't been a guy with a front-end-loader going by who pulled us out of the ditch? Could we have thanked God if we had been delayed hours instead of minutes or ended up in the hospital instead of going home?

“Experience is what you get when things don't go the way you planned!” This quote, while not from the Bible, could easily be juxtapositioned over a passage such as Hebrews 12:11 which tells us that “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Every moment of every day can be a learning experience if we allow God to use it for His glory and our good. It is our choice in the good times as well as the bad... What choice are you making right now?