meditatio at the water's edge

Torie and I were driving to a wedding a week ago, and she was reading the first chapter of “The Purpose-Driven Life” to me aloud. When she had finished, I did a quick critique of what Rick Warren wrote in the chapter, and then I went on to talk about the importance of seeing ourselves as part of a story. I quickly went over my recounting of God’s story, and emphasized the importance of living out of that story as opposed to all the other “unstories” of our culture. Little did I know we were about to be tested as to which story we were really living in.

Torie read the second chapter of Warren’s book, and it sounded like she was reciting what I had just said about the beginning of God’s story. It was a bit spooky. I had not read any of this book before, but there it was in black and white—some phrases nearly word for word as I had said it a few moments before.

After Torie read the second chapter, we talked some more about it. Almost immediately after we had finished that conversation, our transmission started making some very terrible sounds. The car was dying, and we had to get it off the road. We made it to a gas station where we had some help identifying the problem from a guy in a tow truck. When we realized we weren’t going to make it to the wedding, we made arrangements to be towed back to Grand Rapids (now 100 miles away).

Waiting for my dad to come with his truck, Torie and I had about two hours to talk about the situation. We had to come to grips with the realities of transmission replacement (mucho dinero). My reaction was initially one of mild anxiety and frustration (it always seems things like this happen just as we start making some progress on our savings). Yet, this time, I was not overwhelmed by anxiety or despair. Torie did not seem phased by it at all!

Torie kept reminding me of all the reasons we had to be grateful. She kept looking for ways to see this situation from a kingdom life perspective. She kept reminding me about what I had said about living out of a sense of story and really trusting Jesus when he said that when we seek God’s kingdom, he provides what we need. We saw that God had indeed provided for us ahead of time, not just in this situation, but in several specific situations over the past few years.

We are increasingly learning to live from the perspective of kingdom life, and not just in the theoretical and hypothetical. Living that way is not always easy, but it really is possible, and surely is always good.