God and I are going to - wait, no...
So yesterday was hugely interesting...
Tuesday morning began Monday night. That's because I had to leave home about 3:00 am to travel to the Rockford, IL area for my mom's bariatric surgery. Once 11:30 Monday evening came, I was afraid to fall asleep, 'cause I knew I probably wouldn't wake up. So I just didn't go to sleep. I passed the time reading part of a book that had been given to me, called The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges.
Anyway, I got cleaned up and left for the hospital (about a 2 1/2 hour trip), guzzling Frappacinos for caffeine, and got to the hospital about 6:30, about ten minutes after Mom arrived to get ready. They prepped her, and then we prayed with her and she went off to the surgery room. She didn't get nervous until right before she left. Dad, having been through it before, was tearing up quite a bit most of the way through.
She came through the surgery just fine, and we went in to see her when she got done. She was groggy, and in some pain from having her arms held up during the surgery, but she was coming out of it ok. I told Dad I needed to take off, and he asked the four of us kids to sing a couple songs for her before we left. I'm pretty sure I heard Em singing along, too.
So I left to drive back about noon. I had $7 to put gas in the car, and I thought that'd be plenty. I'm driving back, enjoying the beautiful day and talking to God and whatnot. As I got closer to home, I consulted the gas gauge and saw that it was going to be cutting it close. I had no money, and no cards or checks or anyghing like that. I thought about what I was going to do, and I decided that I was going to ask God to make it last until I got home.
It felt good to do this. God and I were going to get home, and he was going to have Elisha come do his cruse-of-oil trick on my gas tank, and I was going to see God do something for me. The sun's shining, and God and I are cruising down the highway, and my car's gonna run on air until I get in the driveway, and man, I'm gonna have a story.
I drove for over an hour with the gauge in the "E" area, and over a half-hour in the part where I'm normally putting getting gas at the very top of my to do list. I got past Bloomington, which is a half-hour from home, and I thought to myself, This is really happening.
And then something I'd read from the book the previous night hit me. If I ran out of gas right at that moment, did that make God any less good to me? If I got home, did that make Him somehow more worthy of worship then He was at that very moment?
I knew the answer, and I told Him so. God, I said, You're wonderful. You're wonderful, no matter what happens. If I run out of gas right here, I'm still going to believe that You're wonderful. I worship you.
Thirty seconds later, fifteen miles from home, the car died.
Oh, crud, I thought to myself. This isn't quite the story I had in mind. But it turns out God really was still wonderful. I got out of the car and started hoofing it to the closest farmhouse I could find. I walked across new fields of corn on a beautiful, windy day, and I couldn't get these words out of my head:
Forever You are faithful,
Forever You are strong,
Forever You are with us,
Forever.
So I walked and worshipped, and worshipped and walked. It was forty-five minutes of walking before I found a farm where someone was home. They gave me some fuel in a plastic container that they didn't need back. They were kind, but the container wasn't equipped to pour fuel into my car. So after fourty-five minutes of hoofing the gas back to my car, I had to craft a makeshift funnel out of a Nestle Quik bottle and try to pour the gas in as semis went whizzing by, blowing gas all over the car and all over me. My good jeans now had ample amounts of spilled gas to complement the grass stains and barbed-wire holes I had accquired on my walk.
Was He still good? Was He still faithful? Was He still with me? As I rode back, the sun setting, experiencing the early stages of something akin to being high from the gas fumes, it sounded like a rhetorical question.
I mean, of course He is all those things. That's what I've always said. That's what most everyone around me has said. But it didn't necessarily look like the kind of situation where God spends a lot of time hanging out.
So was He with me, or not? Was He good, or not? He didn't do what I'd asked. I didn't have an Elisha-in-the-gas-tank story to share. All I had was sunburn, grass stains, barbed-wire holes, and enough gas to get home.
Oh, yeah. And a couple of hours spent walking through cornfields thinking about Him.
Turns out He was there, after all. And He knew what I needed.
Forever You are faithful,
Forever You are strong;
Forever You are with us,
Forever.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. - The Bible, Psalm 139:7-10
Tuesday morning began Monday night. That's because I had to leave home about 3:00 am to travel to the Rockford, IL area for my mom's bariatric surgery. Once 11:30 Monday evening came, I was afraid to fall asleep, 'cause I knew I probably wouldn't wake up. So I just didn't go to sleep. I passed the time reading part of a book that had been given to me, called The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges.
Anyway, I got cleaned up and left for the hospital (about a 2 1/2 hour trip), guzzling Frappacinos for caffeine, and got to the hospital about 6:30, about ten minutes after Mom arrived to get ready. They prepped her, and then we prayed with her and she went off to the surgery room. She didn't get nervous until right before she left. Dad, having been through it before, was tearing up quite a bit most of the way through.
She came through the surgery just fine, and we went in to see her when she got done. She was groggy, and in some pain from having her arms held up during the surgery, but she was coming out of it ok. I told Dad I needed to take off, and he asked the four of us kids to sing a couple songs for her before we left. I'm pretty sure I heard Em singing along, too.
So I left to drive back about noon. I had $7 to put gas in the car, and I thought that'd be plenty. I'm driving back, enjoying the beautiful day and talking to God and whatnot. As I got closer to home, I consulted the gas gauge and saw that it was going to be cutting it close. I had no money, and no cards or checks or anyghing like that. I thought about what I was going to do, and I decided that I was going to ask God to make it last until I got home.
It felt good to do this. God and I were going to get home, and he was going to have Elisha come do his cruse-of-oil trick on my gas tank, and I was going to see God do something for me. The sun's shining, and God and I are cruising down the highway, and my car's gonna run on air until I get in the driveway, and man, I'm gonna have a story.
I drove for over an hour with the gauge in the "E" area, and over a half-hour in the part where I'm normally putting getting gas at the very top of my to do list. I got past Bloomington, which is a half-hour from home, and I thought to myself, This is really happening.
And then something I'd read from the book the previous night hit me. If I ran out of gas right at that moment, did that make God any less good to me? If I got home, did that make Him somehow more worthy of worship then He was at that very moment?
I knew the answer, and I told Him so. God, I said, You're wonderful. You're wonderful, no matter what happens. If I run out of gas right here, I'm still going to believe that You're wonderful. I worship you.
Thirty seconds later, fifteen miles from home, the car died.
Oh, crud, I thought to myself. This isn't quite the story I had in mind. But it turns out God really was still wonderful. I got out of the car and started hoofing it to the closest farmhouse I could find. I walked across new fields of corn on a beautiful, windy day, and I couldn't get these words out of my head:
Forever You are faithful,
Forever You are strong,
Forever You are with us,
Forever.
So I walked and worshipped, and worshipped and walked. It was forty-five minutes of walking before I found a farm where someone was home. They gave me some fuel in a plastic container that they didn't need back. They were kind, but the container wasn't equipped to pour fuel into my car. So after fourty-five minutes of hoofing the gas back to my car, I had to craft a makeshift funnel out of a Nestle Quik bottle and try to pour the gas in as semis went whizzing by, blowing gas all over the car and all over me. My good jeans now had ample amounts of spilled gas to complement the grass stains and barbed-wire holes I had accquired on my walk.
Was He still good? Was He still faithful? Was He still with me? As I rode back, the sun setting, experiencing the early stages of something akin to being high from the gas fumes, it sounded like a rhetorical question.
I mean, of course He is all those things. That's what I've always said. That's what most everyone around me has said. But it didn't necessarily look like the kind of situation where God spends a lot of time hanging out.
So was He with me, or not? Was He good, or not? He didn't do what I'd asked. I didn't have an Elisha-in-the-gas-tank story to share. All I had was sunburn, grass stains, barbed-wire holes, and enough gas to get home.
Oh, yeah. And a couple of hours spent walking through cornfields thinking about Him.
Turns out He was there, after all. And He knew what I needed.
Forever You are faithful,
Forever You are strong;
Forever You are with us,
Forever.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. - The Bible, Psalm 139:7-10
posted by pastor mike at 2:37 PM
2 Comments:
I am just now realizing almost all of your friends' names start with "D"
At least, this is what your bio implies.
That's why sessha goes by Mich; to aleviate some of the confusion in a word full of "D___"s. In the immortal words of Bobby from that timeless classic 'A Goofy Movie', "I'm doin' this all for you."
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