EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 2.5 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and the deepening of my theological mind. This sermon originally took place on Sept. 1, 2019.
So I have a couple of questions for you this morning:
In those moments where you are tested beyond measure, those very moments when life is unraveling, what is your first inclination? … Do you immediately turn to prayer?
Well, some of you are better at this prayer thing than me!
OK, so how many of you are like me, and your first instinct is to bear down even harder, search for your own solution, leading to even more frustration?
And now, how many of you have had one of those God moments where you’ve been so deaf to his message, that he finally has to all but tap you on the shoulder and say see: This is what I am telling!
Well, this is a story that involves both those questions. … Let me explain.
So in June, during the big wind storm we had, a good portion of our southern fence in our backyard was blown down.
Well, as you can imagine, there were a good number of fences and other house features that were blown down. And so it took us a fair amount of time to find someone who could put up a new fence for us.
But finally, after several delays, the scheduled time had come this past week to finally get the fence put up. … Finally everything seemed in place. … Just a short two months later!
So on Sunday of Labor Day weekend, we worked a 10-hour shift, breaking up our old deck and the old attached shed. Hours and ours of solid labor.
And again, bright and early on Labor Day, we rose and got to work. I took the dog to the kennel where he was going to hang out for the week while the fence got built, came home and Shelley and I started knocking down the rest of the fence, picking up decorative rock, rooting out little trees that had started taking hold in the old fence, etc.
But by about 9 a.m., I still hadn’t heard from the handyman, who said he’d be there to start on the fence on Sept. 2. … So, I shot off a quick text, and the reply that came back was: “Sorry, I had forgot this was Labor Day.”
Well, that was the first indication that we were in for a bumpy week!
Shelly and I continued to work our tails off that day, tearing out our old deck, knocking down fence and hauling old paver bricks.
And then Tuesday rolled around. The handyman sent us a list of the materials we would need for our fence, and so we set off to Menard’s to get what we needed. We worked our way through the fencing aisle, picked out what we wanted and then went to the desk to order it.
Guess what: They only had like 15 of the fence panels we wanted. … They looked it up, and there were various numbers of the same panels at the other regional Menard’s stores, but if we wanted them, we’d have to also go over to Fargo and have them deliver a load, and drive to Detroit Lakes to pick up a few more.
Well, we decided, this fence project had dragged on for so long, we just wanted it done. … And so we picked out a new fence panel of which we were sure they had the 28 panels we needed, ordered them and proceeded to the desk where they do deliveries.
And, you guessed it: They couldn’t deliver until Thursday!
So, we went home Tuesday night and did what little more prep work we could.
Wednesday rolled around, and it rained. So the handyman wasn’t out again.
Thursday finally rolled around, and late morning I got a call from Menard’s that they had dropped off materials. … But I got a text from Shelley a couple hours later that said, “Ahh, wasn’t Brian going to be here, and these fence panels don’t look anything like they did on the computer screen.”
Ahh, OK. Well, it turned out that the handyman had lined up a couple of small projects to keep himself busy while he waited for our materials to arrive. And they ran long. So he wasn’t available until Friday.
And once the fence panels were delivered, they probably were not the ones we would have chosen had we not been between a rock and a hard place.
So now it was Thursday evening: No fence in site, the dog was supposed to come home from the kennel on Friday because our go-to kennel didn’t have room for him over the weekend, we likely were not getting the fence we had envisioned … and, as you can imagine, the tension was building.
Now, add on top of this, that Shelley was extremely busy at work, trying to get the Crossroads ministry at MSUM off to a good start in the first week of school, not to mention running kids all over the place.
And all of the last two weeks, I have been spending just about every waking moment organizing a sale of a newspaper at work. And so our attentions were being pulled in a dozen directions.
Today, it is apparent that on Thursday afternoon, I probably should have called the dog’s back-up kennel and discussed them taking him for the weekend. But our primary kennel promised that if anything opened for the weekend, they would give Cody first priority.
And frankly, my mental scrambling capabilities for the week were shot.
Later, Thursday evening, before bed, I remember vaguely thinking, “It’s time to ask God for help.” But, you know, as we often do, I pressed on, thinking I would find the solution to everything.
So, Friday morning rolls around, and Shelley is like, “Dude, what is the plan!”
Well, I shook out the mental cobwebs, called up the backup kennel, which said they could take Cody for the weekend, but he needed a bordetella shot since his had lapsed since the last time he’d been there.
So, another quick phone call to Cody’s vet who is in Barnesville to see if we could get him in for an urgent vaccination. … Thankfully, before we headed to work, they called back and said yes.
So, the plan was set. Shelley would race to the first kennel, pick up Cody, bring him to Barnesville to the vet for a vaccination, and then race him back to the other kennel here in Moorhead. … All before attending to her own work and plans for Friday.
This necessitated a switch in vehicles for us, because Cody can be a hairy mess, and I have the older vehicle. So, another scramble.
When Shelley got back to the house later that morning, she got to talking with the handyman, who then informed her that he had to change his plans for the fence because the particular fence panels we bought didn’t fit into the brackets he told us to buy. … The headline: Building the fence was going to take longer than he thought.
Well, you can about imagine how we both felt by the time we were heading into work for the day. … Frustrated, angry, out of answers. Just generally miserable. And there was still no clear path in sight.
Compounding my frustration, on Friday, we were not allowed to use our work parking lot because we had rented it out for a street party later that night. That meant that I had to park in the ramp that is attached to the Radisson downtown, and I literally found the very last parking spot on the fifth level … just about when my head was ready to explode.
Do all see a pattern developing here?
Well, on the walk to work, I was going right by the new Beans coffee shop in the first floor of the Radisson, and I thought, “If there is a good day for coffee, it is this one.”
I walked in, proceeded to the counter, and there, on the big marker board right at the counter, was that saying you see on your fridge reminder: “Your knees can buckle from the stress OR you can kneel on them in trust!!”
(Smack the forehead) … I guess God finally decided I needed a slap to the forehead.
While waiting for my coffee to be completed, I stood there, staring at that sign. … Then and there, I realized that this entire week, when the pressure was on, never once did I actually just consider praying about it.
I was convinced that at every turn when things got worse and worse, I would find the solution. … That I could fix it all with just one more phone call, that I would think our way through it all.
And the answer was there waiting for me the entire time. … Prayer. Trust.
Looking back, it was not an easy week, but today I can tell you that things are in place. By the time Cody comes home tomorrow from the kennel, enough of the back yard will be fenced in that it will keep him from running.
And now that we have seen the first few fence panels up and in place, they don’t look as bad I thought they would. It won’t be the fence we pictured, but it will suffice.
Overall, while none of what transpired was the way I had imagined it, I know this unequivocally, God found a way.
And, so on this busy Rally Sunday, that is the message I send with you today: We are never promised easy days. And there will be days that test us beyond our personal limits. … But the message I learn over and over again is that in those moments where it feels most that life is unraveling, we have a choice.
We can continue to try to solve the issue ourselves, banging our head against that wall, or we can throw up a prayer, place our trust in God, and turn the situation over to him.
This may sound corny. Exactly the thing that your pastor is going to tell you, right?
But I can tell you from my experience that it is the moments that I turn over my crises to God that I learn the most. Because every time I do, at the end, I can look back and see the way he made.
“Your knees can buckle from the stress OR you can kneel on them in trust!!”
And that is the good news for this Sunday. … Amen.
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