400 Years of Silence

Well not exactly but, in the world of blogs it is close. I have not posted anything to this blog since last April! When I was posting regularly I really enjoyed writing so I am picking it back up again.

I believe that God wants me to learn a lesson on the brevity of life in 2008. This has been a common theme at least in the first month. I began the new year very sick, then was in a serious car accident, and after visiting my great uncle on a Sunday (a week ago), he died the next Tuesday (he is with Jesus now). James' words in his epistle have caught my attention:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. (James 4:13-14)

Below, I have copied my email to some friends and family the night of the car accident.

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Dear Friends,

A few hours ago, I was in a serious car accident. A friend from the seminary and I were traveling north on the 5, returning to Santa Clarita after attending a missions meeting at Grace Community. A drunk motorist quickly coming from behind us and driving erratically careened across 3 lanes into the rear passenger side quarter panel of my car. The impact caused my car to fish-tail and roll-over, continuing down the freeway. I remember grasping the steering wheel with my left hand and ducking toward the console, waiting for the car to stop rolling. When we finally stopped momentum, the car had rolled 2-300 feet from the point of impact. Dennis and I crawled out of the car, amazed that we were still alive. We praised God in prayer together for His care and protection. Our injuries were mostly cuts and some scratches from the debris and glass, although Dennis does have pain on his right side. The driver of the other vehicle was taken to the hospital, although a witness reported that his injuries did not seem life threatening. We were later treated at a nearby hospital with shots and dressings for our cuts.

I am amazed by the sovereign control of God over events and thoughts. I just imagined a million different details and decisions, which took place to put us at that place at that exact point of time. Why did the meeting end when it did? Why did I speak to such a number of people after and not less or more? Why did we choose not to stop and get something to eat as we had planned? or Why was I driving in the lane I was? And there is a million different scenarios with different outcomes to consider: If we were 7 feet behind, the outcome would have been different for my passenger. If we had rolled two more times, we would have gone over the guardrail, falling down to the 405 underpass. A million different questions and scenarios all point to a sovereign God who does things for His glory, and in this case chose to be magnified in the continued life of a couple expendable people.

I am thankful too for how He put a marker on the night. Our conversation on the way there was so sweet with how we wanted God to be glorified in the semester and how we wanted to grow in our relationship with Christ and to do it as we lived by faith, making day to day choices of trusting Him when another alternative presents itself. And the meeting at Grace was so great as well with getting to hear from faithful missionaries, and getting to see Todd Dick, a close friend and missionary to Croatia—to hear his heart for his ministry and gratitude to God and to get to pray with him. And then good fellowship again with Dennis on the way back as we were talking about something I was looking forward to later in the week when suddenly all that is interrupted by a huge lifted truck making a screeching noise and turning toward you as you look to your right just in time to realize what is happening. I am amazed by the fragility of it all and how your reality can change in an instant. It is so good to know an unchanging God and to live this life in relationship with Him.

God may continue to teach me lessons from what He did tonight but I wanted to share some of these things while they were fresh in my mind.

The car is beyond totaled (a bit ironic after another conversation I had today). I plan to be at work tomorrow but probably will be a bit late.

--
joshua

"I need all your prayers." ~ Hudson Taylor

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