That morning the sun was shining. At least on the outside. On my insides clouds had been blocking out the sun for weeks now, and there was no sign that the rain would stop any time soon. We all pass through such weather. For some the showers last mere minutes. For others it seems the rain goes on for years.
I sat in the passenger side of the car outside a supermarket waiting for Laura to come back from the ATM. We had places to go. As it had been for weeks beneath a sunless sky, the pressure was high.
Laura returned to the car too quickly to have gotten money.
“The ATM isn’t working,” she said, pulling the door shut and putting on her seatbelt.
Then she tried the ignition. Of course, nothing happened.
A car that doesn’t start is not that big of a deal. This is not the first time our car has given us problems starting. There’s some glitch whereby the anti-theft lock gets all irritated when there isn’t actually any threat of thieving. You wait long enough and it seems to calm down and let you get on your way. On this particular morning, this glitch seemed to add another 2,000 vertical meters to what had already seemed like an unending mountain climb, and it sure felt like a big deal.
Sometimes, when the rain has been unceasing and it seems like your climb has no end in sight, it can feel like it takes the mustering of every last ounce of your already very small faith to even get out of the house in the morning. Well, that morning we had done all the mustering we could, and here we were, sitting in a parking lot with a car that wouldn’t start. To change metaphors, we had decided to take a step out of our boat and see if the raging waves would hold us up. That morning outside the supermarket, our feet were still falling—hadn’t hit the waves yet—and it wasn’t looking like the waves were going to be able to hold us up. In fact, I was wondering if car trouble meant we shouldn’t just fling ourselves back in the boat, that is, return home, put our pajamas back on, and spend the rest of the day binge watching Columbo.
Then, with Laura sitting next to me, her forehead resting against the steering wheel, her hand turning the key every 20-30 seconds to see if the car would start, something that was somewhere between horrifying and hilarious happened.
First, you’ll need to understand that many city streets in this country have cement canals running along at least one side for rain runoff. Some streets have a curb between the street and the canal. The street outside the grocery store does not. An old white Mercedes caught my attention, and my eye followed it. Almost in slow motion, the driver of the car, who was, no doubt, looking at his phone, drove the car off the road and plunged both passenger side wheels into the canal on the right hand side of the street. The car bellied out on the ledge where the asphalt road ended and the cement canal began and slid a few feet before coming to a stop.
All I could do was shake my head. I mean seriously. Who does that?
The guy jumped out of his car—unharmed, or so it seemed. (He’d probably stuffed his phone under the driver’s seat first.)
That’s when the crowd began to gather. In just a few minutes, the driver of the car was directing a team of strong, random do-gooders to rock the car back and forth in hopes of pushing it back on the road. From my seat of unapproachable wisdom and insight, I immediately deemed their efforts impossible. The angle didn’t look right. The center of gravity seemed to be hopelessly against them, and the thought of them actually dislodging the car from its position halfway in and halfway out of the canal was, to my expert eye, as likely as this country’s soccer team winning the next World Cup.
But on they pushed and pulled and grunted and groaned nonetheless. All the while Laura kept trying the ignition.
Then, wouldn’t you know it—even the most astute experts sometimes get it wrong—the team of men actually somehow got the car back on the road. The man jumped back behind the wheel, probably reached for his phone under the seat, and drove off. What a story he would have for his family when he got home.
At some point Laura and I got the bright idea that maybe we should pray. So we did. On the second attempt after praying, the engine turned over and we, just like the man who’d bellied out his car, were on our way, too.
So, no Columbo, then? It still seemed like a tempting option. In the end, we decided to stick to the plan and head in the direction of our destination.
On the drive there, my clouded mind turned over the events of the man’s car accident and of our situation in general.
You sent a flood of people to help that guy, God, I thought. And what about us? Your children? We’re dying here! We could use some help out of our own canal!
And then, like a slow but dramatic sunrise, a thought pushed up over the horizon of my mind, and in what seemed like a single moment, I was able to see it all at once.
“He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
(And you might add, he sends teams of men with large biceps to pull the cars of both the just and the unjust out of canals. If I ever write my own paraphrase of the New Testament, you can bet that sentence is definitely making it in.)
You never know, but it’s almost certain the man who drove his car into the canal that morning does not know the omnipotent God of the universe as Father. Yet, that same God, for no other reason than he is just that good, sent a group of people to help the bonehead get unstuck from a situation that was caused by his own gross negligence, even if his phone wasn’t involved. It’s worth repeating: God helped that guy for no other reason than that God is good and finds unimaginable pleasure doing good to all people here on this earth below.
And if God is that committed to the good of those who don’t know him as Father, how about those whom he has adopted as sons and daughters?
“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
If he gets un-adopted boneheads out of their scrapes just because he’s that’s kind of God, what might he be willing to do for his children, especially in the light of all that he’s already done by giving up his Son for them?
I can’t say the clouds fully lifted even then. The path up the mountainside ahead still seemed interminable. But there was something solid beneath my shadowed feet, weary from walking. It was the assurance that the God who sits right now on his throne is the most radical do-gooder the universe has ever seen, and by the double sure fact that I’m both his creation and his beloved child, it is impossible to escape the conclusion that sooner or later I’m going to get some of that goodness splashed all over me. I can almost see God clutching his water guns ready to soak me in his goodness.
David said that God’s goodness and mercy follow us—pursue us like bloodhounds—all the days of our lives. And one day we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Oh, hasten the day. And may we hold fast to hope as we wait to be soaked.