Yesterday, I had the passing thought, If I believed in and followed God in a much more superstitious way, I would be fleeing from Houston right now rather than desperately trying to maintain my bearings.
It seems the "signs" were piling up, the "bad omens" were weighing upon me like millstones. My shoulders are still weary today, under the stress, under the bewilderment, under the inconvenience of all that moving to Houston has entailed.
Family arguments, ongoing financial disagreements, misbudgeting, the breaking and entereing of my Jeep, inability to procure a moving truck, problems with the finally-procured moving truck, a left-behind wallet, still more financial misunderstandings, a mishandled order with the automobile glass-repair place, and to top it all off ... yesterday my Jeep was towed right out of my apartment complex. I had to fork over $186 at the impound yard, which took an hour and a half to find.
Leigh's mother remarked to me that it is a good thing I am in love, or all of this simply wouldn't be worth it. I hate to agree, but she is right.
But, yesterday, as I sat in my only recently-rescued Jeep, dejected and utterly defeated, after this thought flashed in my mind, I suddenly realized what a prideful ponderance it was. After all, while I believe that much of Christianity is becoming seized in a prision of humanistic superstition, I could not help but admit that I have some level of superstition in me when it comes to the things of God. We all do.
We all believe in God with some level of superstition. This is the humanity - the stuff of earth - that we cannot seem to shake when we seek after Him. Ideally, there is nothing superstitious to the work and lordship of God. He blesses, He curses. He gives, He takes.
It is our phony superstitions that contribute to our stumbling, our misunderstandings, and our rebellious ways. If we feel even the least off-kilter in what we are doing or where we are going, the slightest misfortune becomes so much more than it is - it morphs into a "bad omen." Now, I don't believe that all the mishaps and problems I have encountered are "slight" misfortunes, but I also don't chalk them up to God, which, if I did, would make Him a sneaky prankster who would rather deviously manipulate my circumstances than communicate with me honestly. And I don't blame them on the devil, either. I think evil is a lot more subtle than tow trucks and petty car theives.
I once watched a Joel Osteen message in which he recounted a story about trying to go out and enjoy a Friday night with his wife, only to be made late to an engagement by a slow-moving train. He resolved to not give into frustration, he said, because he suddenly recognized "that this was just a test sent directly from God," and having to wait on this train was part of a divine lesson. Such a story confused me - I think Joel was just one of the thousands of marginally unlucky people who found the inconvience of having to wait on slow-moving trains that day. Since when does God have to be so intimately involved with the railroad conditions in Houston, Texas?
Please, dear reader, don't get me wrong. I believe deeply in the reality that God works in and through a million little things a day. I believe we can find direction from Him in dozens of circumstances throughout the day. However, there's a difference between His being in them, and His manipulating of them.
I am weary, and colliding with feelings of despair. I don't believe that there are "signs" telling me to pack up and flee Houston, but this doesn't ease the stress that has me teetering as if on the precipice of a cliff. However, I suppose the best thing to do is to pray for awareness of those million little things of wonder, and all the more, to pray, pray, pray.
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