Enjoying the Unscripted Moments
Why we can't and shouldn't try to control everything
Our van broke down out of state a few days ago - don’t worry; we are fine! We scrambled to see what our various options are for getting home while it’s being repaired. We made a new plan. All is good.
But there was something very interesting we talked about - small misfortunes and large tragedies don’t happen because we did something wrong. They’re not punishment. Life is unpredictable. We can’t control every part of it. We’re not God. And sometimes the most beautiful moments are born in the unscripted days and the “problems” and in the things that take the place of our best laid plans.
Like the night we broke down: we got to see these roses, we had a nice walk in an adorable neighborhood. A coffee ice cream. A good talk. Laughter. God can use the unscripted moments. And in those moments maybe He’s even more visible bc we become more like the “mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” We’re off our own script. The illusion of omnipotence & control is shattered for a bit.
I thought of this verse which I didn’t use to understand, but in the past year or so I think I do. It’s not saying don’t make plans. It’s saying do everything and ask for everything with the knowledge that we’re not God. And ask it only if it be God’s will. Because…we are not all-knowing creatures. And sometimes we don’t know what’s best for us, or what this unexpected problem might have protected us from, or what gift it might give us.
“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” James 4:13-17
