I had today off for graduation ceremonies at my Seminary. No. I’m just first semester so I’m not graduating. However, all students are required to attend. I had a really good time there and got to chat with my professors and the rest of the staff and congratulate some of my fellow classmates as well as getting to talk to students who are thinking about coming to give them the “hard sale” as it was.
So I get back and have to edit a paper. Not an easy task. My roommate is an English major and grammar isn’t my strong point so you can imagine how it looks. Some emotional side of me doesn’t take that well, but in the end, I stop and think that I have a roommate who’s willing to do such and I’m quite pleased with that. I’ve bragged about him a lot, and I won’t stop. He’s an awesome guy.
I figure I’ll reward myself. He doesn’t want to join me, but I decide I’ll go to the Y. I can’t swim and I’m terrified to go underwater, but I like to relax in the water. I get there and I’m all set to go in the pool and what do I see on the door but a sign saying the multi-purpose pool is closed and will re-open tomorrow. The other one doesn’t have stairs so I don’t use it. Great.
Well, I need to get my oil changed anyway before we go to the beach. Now’s a good time. So I head over to the place where it will happen and ask to get my tires rotated as well. While I’m waiting for that to happen, I get paged to come back to the automotive department. (This was at the Wal-Mart.) I go back there and they say I’ve been driving on a small nail in my passenger rear tire. I’m wondering when this happened and I’m not at all pleased with the price.
So hear I am an extra $80 out today. Now I’m normally a gloomy and pessimistic person who sees every silver cloud having a dark lining and can find a way to make something miserable out of anything. I think of those posts that I did reviewing John Loftus’s book and then start to think of how ridiculous it is to complain about such suffering.
The title of the blog comes from G.K. Chesterton. He said an adventure is an inconvenience rightly understood and an inconvenience is an adventure wrongly understood. I got to have the experience of learning more on making it on my own when an emergency comes up and got to have the excitement of driving around to new areas in a new town and learning more.
I also consider that while I consider this suffering, maybe it is for a good reason. Suppose that the tire would have leaked and my roommate and friend and I would have been stranded on the way to the beach, or worse, been killed or injured in a car accident. I then look back on the events and think about how that seemed to oddly connect together.
Had I not gone to the Y, I would have likely not thought about getting my oil changed. It wasn’t on my mind until on the way to the Y. However, once I got there and found out that I couldn’t get in my dip, I decided to go and get that oil change. I also couldn’t have had that happen probably if my roommate had decided to go with me. Now there’s a chance he might have not gone swimming since I couldn’t go, but I would have been just as pleased to let him enjoy himself while I went out to the car with my book.
Am I out some money now? Yeah. Big deal. It seems to keep coming in from somewhere. Maybe I need to do what I keep telling others. Stop looking so much from my finite perspective as the final authority. Can I prove providence in any way in this? No. I wouldn’t bother to try either. I just remember that God allows things to happen for a good reason and I have to trust him.
Inconvenience? Maybe. If that’s the case then, I should see it as an adventure.
Support Deeper Waters on Patreon!
