What Isn’t

November 12, 2019

If we could pull back the curtain of all possible outcomes, what would we see? In the 1946 Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey, good guy/business failure learns what would have been had he not lived. More recently (1985), Marty McFly learns the same lesson in “Back to the Future.” We often wonder what might have been, had the circumstances of our lives been different, or had we made different choices in years past. 

Some years back when attendance at Park church was booming, I was driving through a nearby city and passed a small United Methodist church surrounded by hundreds of houses. Thousands of people lived within walking distance of that little church, which I knew was struggling to keep its doors open. I got to wondering what might have been different had I been appointed to an urban or suburban church instead of to a little backwater village in the northern edge of Appalachia. “Lord,” I prayed, “What could I have accomplished in the suburbs?”

I didn’t hear any voices, but I know God was speaking because the next words I heard in my head were not anything I wanted to hear. God said, “Jim, I couldn’t have done any more with you there than where you are now. I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got to work with.” 

“What if’s” and “If only’s” are not usually very productive ways of thinking. There is one exception, however. Linda and I drove home from a volleyball game this evening. Snow was falling, the back roads were icy. I was thankful for what was not. There were no deer jumping in front of the car, no slush on the road, no sliding into a ditch. We didn’t end the day with one of us fighting for life in the ER, and we didn’t lay our head tonight in fear for our lives. Most of all, we aren’t living under the curse of sin, for Jesus Christ paid that price on the cross. We don’t live in fear of death, because he is alive forevermore and promised that “because I live, you shall live also.” Tonight, I am thankful for what is not.