Bumper Cars and God

Today I watched two movies. One at the theatre and one at home. Honestly, they were both chick flicks. But that was ok because I was with a chick. And I ate at Q-dobe. Yum. The best chicken and cheese buritto north of Mexico City. Let's see. then I burned popcorn and the house still stinks. Few things smell worse and longer than burnt popcorn. I answered a bunch of emails and ignored my cell phone. I am so far over on my minutes this month that Sprint will probably give all of their employees raises. I went to my office and brought a bunch of stuff home. It's all still in the Explorer because I was tired of messing with it and decided that tomorrow would be a better time. And now I am trying to figure out where to go to church tomorrow. I have not had this problem often. I always know where I am going because, well, I work there. Correction, I "worked" there." These days I am trying to spend a lot of time collecting dust. I am trying to sleep a lot and spend much horizontal time. This is the main road back from adrenaline exhaustion. It is not a fun road so i am looking for all of the short cuts that I can find. Unfortunately, there are not many. Actually, there are none.

Today I got 18 emails from the same teenage girl. And I got 7 from another one. I tried to answer them all. And I got several phone calls from a wonderful young man who is having a difficult love life at the moment. I am not good at giving that kind of advice. But I tried.

I wonder what God is thinking about tonight. Yeah, I know. He's thinking about everybody and He's thinking about places where it is not night. But I wonder what He is thinking tonight when I come to His mind. Is He upset? Ticked-off? Bemused? Frustrated? Disappointed? Happy? Pleased? Ecstatic? I really do not know. The older that I get the more I realize that I usually only think that I know what God is thinking. I only THINK that I always have a handle on what His will is. That is discouraging. But it also means that I must trust more deeply in His soveriegnty. For if He is not soveriegn ... we are all screwed.

So I cast my vote for a Soveriegn God. He has His Hands on the wheel and they are at the 10 and 2 position. God does not have wrecks. Not the kind you see on the highway. Not the kind that are accidental. But I have noticed that He sometimes delights in playing "bumper cars." Remember those? As a kid I used to pay the man the correct amount of tickets and then get in my car (I always chose a blue one. It was a Cubs thing even back then.) When the power was turned on I would run into all of the people that I could. Sometimes when I would get a really good hit on somebody you could see them bounce backward or to the side. You could tell they felt the impact all of the way to their teeth. That was a sweet feeling. Bumper cars are all about causing as much destruction and havoc as you can within a controlled environment where nobody really gets hurt long term. God has been like that of late. Lot's of hits keep coming my way. None of them have killed me. None have sent me to the hospital. I am, however, taking very serious medication. And when your doctor "strongly recommends" that you quit your job by thanksgiving and it's already November ... well, my friend, you have just been "T-boned" by God. And it gets your attention. At least He's got MY attention. I will live through it or die trying. (Joke intended) I don't think God is going to run out of tickets for this ride and so I think I am going to go and look for another ride to get on. And obviously I want Him there with me. I'm just hoping that He is finished with His famous "bump and run."

And I sure hope He doesn't put my on His tilt-a-whirl.