When Life Throws You a Curve

RADCLIFF CHRISTIAN -- WHERE GREAT THINGS HAPPEN!


One of the chaplains at Norton Hospital shared the following story with us this week. A great illustration!

Before he retired, LaSalle University basketball coach William (Speedy) Morris received a phone call while shaving one morning. "Sports Illustrated is on the phone," his wife called out.  He got so excited that someone from Sports Illustrated, the most important sports magazine in the country, wanted to talk with him that he hurried his shaving, cutting himself three different places, ran out of the bathroom, lost his balance and tumbled down the stairs. Finally, limping, and with blood and lather on his face, he got to the telephone.
"Sports Illustrated?" he asked.
"Yes, it is," said the voice on the other line, "and for just $1 an issue, you can get a full year's subscription!"
It's tough when the phone call is not quite what we hoped for or when the plays we purposefully diagrammed don't quite turn out like we expect.

We have our ideas of how things should go in our lives. We have a purpose and a plan. We make our decisions and then, life turns out differently than we expected. The job was not quite what we anticipated it to be—the diagnosis was worse than we had hoped—the plan we so carefully devised fell far short of what we projected. We soon learn that despite our fervent efforts and carefully constructed plots, life cannot always be engineered to fit all our intentions.
This is where our faith helps us greatly. A preacher long ago, writing of the intersection of purpose and faith, said:

Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
   don't try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
  God's the one who will keep you on track.
Proverbs 3:5, The Message

Success in life depends on our willingness to find joy, even when our aims fall short of our hopes and purposes. The good news is that God is ahead of us, working for our good in ways we cannot understand or anticipate. We can trust that God cares for us and that we can trust the process of God's mercy and grace. Have the courage to make mistakes and to let the process unfold.

We need to make plans and anticipate needs; we need to have our agendas and diagram our plays. But we also need to recognize that if and when our expectations don't work out, faith can help us "listen for God's voice in everything we do, everywhere we go." May we find the faith to "trust God from the bottom of our hearts."

It's great to be your Pastor!