A pothole of immeasurable proportions

At dusk, a few weeks ago now, I was driving home after spending the afternoon helping our daughter with her four little ones. Traffic at that hour is always a bit heavy, but that day, it was unusually light. I was zipping along, thinking about other things.

I didn't see it coming.

I slid into the right turn lane, taking care in the early darkness to watch out for cyclists, as the turn lane converges with the bicycle right of way.

And then, out of the blue, a huge CLUNK as my car slammed into a pothole of immeasurable proportions.  I thought the entire car was being swallowed alive, the end of life as I know it in one enormous gulp. 

I drove the rest of the way home, wondering what I had hit, what had hit me, and if suddenly, in that last mile home, whether the axle would fall off.

I didn't see it coming.  I did not dig that pothole, nor place it point blank on my path, but I absolutely drove right into that one, unaware and unexpected.  I took a direct hit as from a stealth missile of mass destruction, abruptly seeking its target on the fairest of days.  And that would be me.

We all have enormous craters and fissures all around us, just waiting for us to fall in, to trip us up, to put us out of commission, to seek to be victorious over us. Even those potholes of our own making.

But there is a God in heaven...
             
                             Daniel 2. 28

And that reality changes everything.

We are an imperfect people.  We sin.  Others sin. And we are all impacted by it, the reverberations that can dismantle a life. 

But there is a God in heaven
    Who makes all things new.
We are not stuck,
     not any one of us.
God never intends us to remain
     at the bottom of the miry bog.
God transforms.
God redeems.
God is already at work.

Cast all your anxieties on Him,
      for He cares for you.
Be sober, be watchful.
Your adversary the devil
prowls around
         like a roaring lion,
seeking someone to devour.
Resist him,
firm in your faith...
   
                  1 Peter 5. 7-9

God never promised that
     there wouldn't be potholes,
but He is there
                to redeem them.
Healer,
Savior,
Redeemer.

But You are near, O LORD...

                  Psalm 119. 151

YOU are near.
You ARE near.
You are NEAR.

God is faithful.
     Even in this.