Life happens for you.
Life can be…
Weird.
Truly. Sometimes I just don’t get it.
I love the days when everything makes perfect sense and things seem to fall exactly into place. Your head hits the pillow at the end of the day with the most satisfying last-piece-in-the-middle-of-the-10,000-piece-jigsaw-puzzle kind of feeling. The stars come into alignment. Chaos gives way to order. The banks of the river fall into the flow.
Other days are different. You search through a pile of pieces that all seem to be a part of some other puzzle. Simply finding a single edge piece turns into this BIG DEAL, and the frustration of it builds into words you didn’t know were still inside you. All that’s left where the stars used to stand aligned is the black void of night. Order falls into chaos. The river dries into crusty, curling mud cakes.
-
The big bad things out there can for sure get to me. Every so often you’re served up a doozy of a day and get the wind knocked out of you. “What in the actual heck?” you ask God. But you still ask God.
The more dangerous ones I think, at least for me, are the small dumb things that happen in a day. They’re these subtle little pin pricks that pile up over time and get you wondering, at least a little bit: “what was the point of that? Is everything just random?”
You know the ones:
In fall I decided to take a bike ride on the Swamp Rabbit Trail. I got 6 miles in, and my seat cushion snapped in two. I had to ride the six miles back standing up (a cool thing to do on a BMX bike, but a less cool thing to do on a road bike built for leaning over for racing).
Rachel had paused a football game a couple Sundays back, gone for a walk to try and calm a crabby baby, came back with a still crabby baby an hour later, and while reaching for the remote to restart the game, saw the app timeout and erase the saved game progress.
My property manager friend, Ben from emails past, was shuffling through his tools in the back of his truck on an icy cold Montana day. Rushing through to try and get out of the weather, he sticks his hand into the button on a can of spray paint and coats his fingers and tools with a vibrant shade of pink.
What was the point of that? Why does this stuff happen to me? To you? To the people we care about?
Here’s a thought I go back to on my better days that might help:
What if these dumb little things don’t happen to me, but instead they happen for me?
What if instead of viewing our days as a bunch of random circumstances that either align with our plan or get in our way, we begin to view our days as a story that has both been and is being written by a God who saw me before I was born, recorded every day of my life in His book, and “laid out every moment before a single day had passed”? (Psalm 139).
What if everything in all creation - from the cycles of the moon and boundaries of the nations, to the broken bike seats and cans of spray paint - what if everything in every moment of every day exists that we might “feel our way toward Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us”? (Acts 17)
And what if this God was for us? (Romans 8)
What if life happens for you?
-
Everything happens for a reason.
Even the dumb little things.
-
I won’t pretend to know exactly how the dumb little things are for me all the time - but that won’t stop from taking a guess at it:
- My broken bike seat gave me a funny story, a serious quad workout, and a chance to meet three bike shop owners. It also gave me a chance to reevaluate the price of my hobbies and put my money into something waaaaaaaay better than road biking (videogames).
- My friend Ben was able to stop and laugh at his pink fingers and tools. It’s pretty easy to get to a place where you take your work too seriously. Keep some pink spray paint nearby.
- I have no guesses as to why Rachel’s football game coverage got messed up. It was a stinking great game. God and I are still having words on that one. ;)
-
“What this broken bike seat meant for evil, God meant for Zelda.” Gen 50:20
(No, not really.)
-
Everything that happens in your life - good or bad, big or small, exciting or boring - happens for you. God uses it all to direct you, shape you, purify you, reveal you, connect you, shift you, save you, provide for you, teach you, and grow you. He uses it all, every single moment, to love you.
As the subtle pin pricks of life pile up, and that one last straw threatens to break your back and cause you to cry out, “Why does this always happen TO ME?” Stop.
Remember the God who brings all kinds of situations full circle - the good and bad, the small and big, the exciting and boring. Remember that all of this exists that we might feel our way toward him - even though He is not far from any one of us. In fact, He is right here, shaping every moment, every thing, for a reason. Even the dumb little things.
Invite this God into this moment. Acknowledge that the one who is aware of even one sparrow falling to the ground is aware of you. He’s a good dad, and he doesn’t allow anything that happens to us to not also be somehow for us.
Life happens for you.