You’re running late for work. You stayed up late and overslept. As you gather your info for the presentation you’re in charge of, you plop a sausage biscuit in the microwave and pry on your dress shoes. The oven sounds and you retrieve your breakfast. As you grab your lunch from the fridge, you spot the mustard and add a dab to your biscuit.
As you back out of the driveway, you calculate that, barring bad traffic, you’ll arrive just in time for the start of the meeting. You can feel the pressure mount as you pull to a stop at the first red light, the one that seems to take forever. As you wait, you take a sip of coffee and think of the countless hours you put into this presentation for your companies’ top client.
“We have good reasons for them to stay with us,” your boss had said. “You just have to clearly show them why.”
As you near the ramp to the highway, you hear a train whistle. Tension mounts. “Please Lord!” you pray.
No deal. The crossing arm comes down two cars a ahead of you. You’re stuck, boxed in, with no way to take an alternate route. The train cars just keep on coming. You sip your coffee and pick up the biscuit from the paper plate.
As you take a bite, you get lost in the savory, crunchy delight. But then, as if in slow motion, you watch a large mustard drop escape from the back end of the biscuit as you take your second bite. Yellowness plops and spreads quickly down your blue dress shirt. You look around. No napkins.
Your boss glares you down as you burst into the conference room, fifteen minutes late. A junior colleague stands up from the presentation desk and gives you a questioning look. Soon after you sit down, you realize why. In your late night weariness, you forgot to upload the presentation from your home computer to the companies’ shared folder.
In stunned disbelief and growing panic, the words of a song flash in your mind:
Mamma said there’ll be days like thisThere’ll be days like this, mamma said. [1]
Perhaps you’ve had days which feel this unnerving. I know I have. What steps do we take to recover?
Recovery Mode
Being an IT professional, I’ve been trained to think recovery. We make plans for restoring the data when programs end abnormally?
That’s IT, but how do we recover from life’s unexpected happenings?
I suggest there’s two phases – circumstantial recovery (dealing with the problems at hand) and inside recovery (dealing with the affects on our mind and emotions).
Circumstantially, in the above scenario, perhaps an honest disclosure of your disastrous morning would add some sympathetic humor to the growing tension. Then you could give your presentation from the heart without the Power Point slides.
This might work, but what about the damage to your insides? What are ways you can tend to your heart when your outsides are falling apart?
Soul Recovery
What’s the plan?
As believers in Jesus Christ, we need to be reminded of God’s overall plan. Though we’d like to be, we’re not in control. God is and His plan doesn’t include elimination of chaos from our lives. He has a much greater plan. God is at work for His greater purpose of bringing the universe into submission to Jesus Christ. [2] He’s also at work in us, not for us to experience the American dream, but for us to be transformed more and more into the image of Christ. [3]
Get with the plan?
If God’s plan is different than us just being happy, how can we get with His plan? Even though we love smooth, predictable days with no oversleeping, no train delays, no mustard stains and dazzling presentations, this is not necessarily God’s plan for our day.
What if far greater, eternal things happen in the midst of our difficulties? What if, in our trials, we learn more and more to depend on God and not on ourselves? [4] What if problems lead us into more intense interactions with folks around us, giving opportunities to love them more deeply?
The Rest of the Story
In the above scenario, when you finish speaking your presentation, you feel relieved. As far as you can tell, you hit all the major points from your presentation.
To your surprise, the client walks up and congratulates you on how you owned up to your struggles and forged ahead, even with an ugly blob of mustard on your shirt. You both laugh. Your client mentions similar experiences and empathizes with you.
When the client leaves, you’re junior colleague comes up and compliments you on how cool you were under pressure and asks you how you did it. This gives you an opportunity to give glory to God for what He did in you. You tell him how you were praying and asking God for guidance the whole way through.
Hearing your name, you look over and see your client and boss talking. They both smile at you. Your presentation did the trick, the client is renewing for another year.
Stepping Into the Greater Plan
Not every bad day ends with circumstantial success. Some days are so bad we feel the effects for a long time. However, if we stick with God’s greater plan as our goal, our actions can have positive eternal ramifications.
The bottom line has to do with our goal for each day. Is our primary goal to be successful in all our tasks with no problems? Or is our first priority to love God and whomever He puts in our path as we go about our duties? [5]
This change in focus is a paradigm shift which changes everything concerning our stress levels and our joy. Keeping God’s greater purposes in mind, we develop a love first mentality.
If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you (John 15-10-12 NASB).
Prayer
Lord, I’ve had days like what is described above. At the time, it felt as if my life was falling apart and crashing into the sea. But, You are an ever present help in my times of trouble. [6] Thank You.
You are trustworthy. You know what’s best for me. You never stop working for my greater good. Please increase my faith that I might always trust in Your greater purposes no matter my circumstances. Please help me order my days around loving over accomplishments.
Amen
[1] Song by The Shirelles, 1961
[2] Ephesians 1:9-12
[3] Romans 8:28-29
[4] II Corinthians 1:8-9
[5] Matthew 22:36-40
[6] Psalms 46:1-3
Other Posts on Experiencing God during Difficulties:
Can we be Sad and Glad at the Same Time?
Knowing God’s Love in Spite of the Circumstances
Dealing with Sadness and Disappointment
Orienting our Lives Around God’s Greater Purposes
Embracing God’s Purposes in our Pain
Joy in the Journey is about the gladness of God’s nearness in the midst of life’s adventures.
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