Lessons From the Big Island & Beyond - #11
A few weeks ago I was slouching in a wicker easy chair gazing out the window at the majestic Pacific, at a multitude of whales gliding by and at two of my beautiful daughters relaxing poolside at our gorgeous Airbnb outside of Hilo, Hawaii. Rough life!
But there’s often a flip-side to a snapshot of life, isn’t there? For me at this moment in Hawaii, my “flip-side” was, I doubted my ability to get to Hawaii (or anywhere really) due to cancer and cancer treatment side-effects. The day before we left, I had one of my head-pain episodes that completely incapacitated me for a day of packing and planning and then my sister-in-law Kim had to cancel coming with us due to my brother having an injury snowboarding. (He will be okay.) I also felt uncomfortable leaving to have fun on the very first days of what could be a world war. Heading to a remote place in the middle of the ocean, half-way to Taiwan with who knows how China is going to react to all this, wasn’t comforting either. We pushed forward and thankfully kept our plans.
Strange times, no? What is your flip-side? Is something getting in the way of your plans? A few years ago, it seemed so easy for me to make plans. Now? Pretty difficult sometimes. If it isn’t covid, it’s covid restrictions, or Putin or supply chain issues or, for me, cancer and its myriad of consequences. Maybe for you its depression or a difficult marriage or crushing financial woes or a plethora of other possibilities added to the weight of the state of our world. In truth, our plans have never been in our control, but in the past and for the most part, it often seemed to me like I could control my plans! Until these last few years, that is.
James 4:13-17 says,
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Ouch! That’s James for you! Straight to the punch. God knows our flip-slide… He knows the things others can’t see. He even knows the things we can’t see. He knows what is going to disrupt our best laid plans. He lays our plans! When we don’t like the plan, I believe we are effectually telling God we don’t approve of His kingship. Obviously, this is not good!
I’ve often thought of my grandparents who lived through WWI, the Spanish Flu, the Depression, WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Every few years their world turned upside down while at the same time flight became normalized, phones were invented and antibiotics became standardized in medicine. Eventually they even saw computers invented and space travel accomplished. I knew I hadn’t experienced life’s plans changing as they had. I knew, historically speaking, I had it pretty easy (and still do). My paternal grandma lost nine brothers in WWI who gave their lives for the Kaiser. (!!!) Shortly after the war and the Spanish flu and before the Great Depression, she came to the US alone, with no money. She had her children at the onset of the Depression and got them through high school during WWII! Can you imagine? I’m guessing changes and plans being cancelled were an intimate fact of life for her.
Now that I’m getting a tiny little taste of my plans being all jumbled, I can say with certainty, it’s not fun. Whether I’m receiving a cancer diagnosis or a cancelled trip, I don’t like to have my plans interrupted!
During lockdown a friend sent me the text of James 4:13 with an open-hand emoji to signify that whatever plan we were trying to make at the time we would hold onto loosely, with an open-hand so to speak. Now I use this emoji regularly as a shorthand way of saying, whatever the Lord wills. We had been using the emoji for little covid-ruined plans. When I got my diagnosis, I sent her a screenful of open hands to remind us that this too is the Lord’s will.
Whatever the Lord wills. Whatever. Whatever? Whatever! Do I really believe and embrace this “whatever”? I’m not sure. I hope so. Time will tell. I pray that the Lord will give me enough faith in His sovereignty, in His love for me and in His ultimate plan for me to face whatever is in my future with an open-hand emoji. ✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻✋🏻
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(The picture below was taken in Hilo near the wicker easy chair I mentioned.)
