Saturday my wife and I drove from Honey Lake all of the way to L.A. in order for me to speak at a church located in Foley Alabama which is near Gulf Shores in the heart of “Lower Alabama” – (L.A.).
Yesterday we had a tremendous service and a number of people came forward to accept Christ. After the service I told the pastor that I needed to hurry on home because I had a four hour drive, but he wanted to take us to lunch. I resisted but he insisted, and I finally agreed because he said we would be in and out of the restaurant in no time.
“No time” ended up being a long time and we didn’t get on the road until 3:00 p.m. Honey Lake time. We fought the gulf coast traffic through all of the little towns on Hwy 59 and finally got to the I-10 expressway, and though traffic was heavy, we finally began to make good time; that is until we got on a huge bridge and suddenly traffic stopped entirely. We sat on that bridge for 2 1/2 hours until traffic finally began to inch along again. As I suspected they had several cars that had crashed on the bridge that had to be cleared and that was the cause of the delay.
I needed to get home because I have so much work to do; we have our huge prayer meeting beginning just one week from today and I’m still working on the agenda and am far behind on that and many Honey Lake matters. After sitting there and not moving for an hour, I convinced my wife to take over driving for me and I got my laptop out and as we sat on the bridge not moving I began working on the agenda.
When the traffic finally started moving, she said aren’t we supposed to be heading east?
I replied, “Yes!”
“Well we’re heading west!”
Huh?
Just then I saw a directional sign that stated “Pascagoula Miss” straight ahead. We had just sat on a bridge stalled in traffic for 2 ½ hours and we were heading the wrong way?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
Sigh . . . She wasn’t kidding. Somehow when I got on the expressway I’d headed west instead of east.
Grrrrrr!
She finally found a place to turn around and we headed east. Of course when we got on the bridge, traffic slowed to a crawl again so everyone on this side of the bridge could rubberneck at the fender bender on the other side. We finally got off the bridge and began making time again and then it was as though we entered into a hurricane. It began raining so hard it was nearly horizontal and my wife slowed to 10 miles an hour and looked at me with terror in her eyes and wanted to stop. I gave up on trying to finish the Prayer meeting agenda on my computer and took over driving through the vicious downpour.
For the next two hours I focused on merely staying on the road and staying alive as I inched along through the torrential downpour with my flashers on and water spraying ten feet high on either side of the car.
Grrrrrr!
While I was driving I got a call and it was from someone who had just arrived at Tallahassee Airport and was coming in for our Prayer Meeting. I mentioned to him that he was a week early and the event was next week and not this week. He was aghast and had flown in from Phoenix AZ. After talking for a while we decided that since he had come all of this way we could meet in the morning and at least talk about what would transpire at the meeting because he could not stay for an entire week.
My problem was that I already had three in person appointments lined up one after another for this morning and a couple of calls, but after all that had happened to him I just couldn’t turn him down.
Right after that conversation another friend called and told me he was driving to Honey Lake for a major conference this week comprised of some of my favorite friends on this planet. I’d forgotten that their event was scheduled for this week and he wanted to shoot sporting clays with me in the morning.
Huh?
Okay now I have five people who want to meet with me this morning and there is only one of me.
About this time my son called and I started telling him all that had happened and I whined that I don’t understand why God was punishing me so, after all I was trying my utmost to do something good on His behalf with this trip to L.A. and for that matter the prayer meeting
He laughed and suggested that I reschedule my local appointments.
Hmmm . . . Good idea – (I guess that acorn didn’t fall too far from the tree). I made a couple of calls and rescheduled what I could, and it now looks less formidable. Today will be the dickens and I’m dreadfully behind, but I’ll get through it . . . Somehow . . .
I was thinking about how easy it is to blame God for anything and everything that goes wrong in our lives or even the world. To be sure He “allowed” me to go the wrong way on an expressway, but He didn’t cause it. I did that out of sheer stupidity on my own.
The same goes for overcommitting. Being the overachiever that I am, I do that all of the time. It isn’t God’s fault that I “bite off more than I can chew” and then suddenly realize that I’ve got way more to do than I’m capable of doing. Again that’s sheer stupidity on my part.
Most bad things that happen to (supposedly) good people are the result of our own folly and sin, and yet invariably we blame God for allowing it. In fact before sin came along our ancestors led an ideal life in the Garden of Eden and all was perfect. We chose to sin out of sheer stupidity and it resulted in a generational curse that was only defeated when Jesus graciously came and died for our collective sins on a cross.
I imagine God found it rather amusing as He incredulously watched me make a fool out of myself which resulted in my getting home late last night and up early this morning. I have no doubt that He was grinning and shaking His head, and muttering, “There you go again”.
He already knows the outcome of today and beyond, and I have no doubt that everything will work out in splendid fashion this week and next during our big prayer meeting for Renewal of America.
So I pray that I will not be so stupid this week, but if I am, that I don’t blame my Father. Have a great day today.
Proverbs 19:3
The stupidity of a person turns his life upside down, and his heart rages against the LORD.
June 23, 2014 – Click here to listen