This morning I was driving to a small country church where I was filling in for the normal pastor who was away, and while I was casually driving and talking to myself (I was rehearsing what I was going to say; I’m not my own best friend) I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw red and blue flashing lights. For a moment I was like “What’s that?” and then I realized what that meant, “Oh noooooooooo!” I do my best to not speed anymore… 2 tickets will teach you that lesson… but while I was rehearsing I was getting excited and my foot got heavier than normal. As soon as I saw the lights I started trying to come up with a good excuse for speeding… because that’s what a good pastor does… actually, in all honesty, I was practicing my Jedi mind tricks, “You won’t give me a ticket, and you will sing I’m a Little Teapot.” Fortunately, a moment after seeing the lights of the police car I noticed I could only see part of them because they were partially obstructed by another vehicle. The policeman was pulling someone else over. It was such a great moment for me… definitely not for the other person, but I was elated. It’s sad how a wonderful moment like this for me means someone else had to suffer. I wish I could thank the other driver for saving me because I would love him or her to at least have the satisfaction of knowing that he or she getting the ticket was an incredible gift to me, and I was very grateful. It wouldn’t make the anger completely disappear, but I’m sure it would’ve helped on some level. Coincidentally my sermon was on was on doing acts of kindness. After the service an older gentlemen said to me, “I wonder what the cop would’ve done if you had gone up to him and said you wanted to pay the ticket for that person.” He’s clearly a nicer person than I am for thinking like that. Offering to pay for someone’s ticket would be the kind of standout act of kindness that would stay with that person for life, which is what I was preaching about. Sometimes the teacher needs to listen to his or her own message more than others.
This experience made me think was this luck or God? A good friend of mine with a pastoral background recently asked me, can we really know it’s God and not luck? Beyond the clichés, which he already knows and my own teaching of ‘you believe what you want to believe’, the answer is no. Does anything that happens come from God or is it just chance? People say ‘things happen for a reason’, but does it? The only real truth is our choices affect what happens to us and others; for instance, if I had been more careful not to speed I wouldn’t have been at risk of a ticket. That was my own fault for being sloppy. What’s scary is when you look at the good and bad side to the question of ‘is it luck or God?’.
If it’s luck
- Good Side: When good things happen it’s especially exciting and something to celebrate
- Down Side: What happens is out of our control and we are at the mercy of luck, some intangible thing.
If it’s God
- Good Side: We can feel blessed when good things happen and know who to thank; plus, when we want something we can ask for it.
- Down Side: When there’s bad luck it can feel like God is punishing us, abandoned us, or showing favoritism to someone else.
Neither answer is very satisfying. The reality is the answer doesn’t matter insofar that the bottom line is we are responsible for our lives. Good and bad luck is inevitable, but it is up to us to make wise choices to limit the bad and increase the odds of good happening. Fortunately, no matter what happens, there is always good to be found and sometimes it’s the unlucky moments that lead to our greatest accomplishments… the movie 127 Hours comes to mind; that was some pretty terrible luck.
This week may you find the wise choice in both the good and bad situations.
Rev Chad David, www.ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people