I nearly flipped my car on the way home. I blame my wife. I was, after all, returning from buying her a Blizzard sundae at Dairy Queen. Granted, I took care of my own business earlier in the trip, but, when it became a disaster, I developed amnesia about that fact.
It was the last day of a coupon. I went to get a specific Blizzard that they carry only at that time of year. Dairy Queen ran out of the items used on the sundae. (This sort of thing happens much too often for it to be a coincidence. I'm convinced she calls ahead to find out what's out, then orders it to make my day more difficult.) I forgot my phone so I hoped for the best, bought her other favorite, hurried a little to get back, pushing it slightly (like ten miles over the limit) going out of town, got stuck following an SUV, one of those really big cousins of a Hummer, saw a light frosting of pre-Christmas snow and we went up a slight hill on Garfield Road that I've driven probably a zillion times since my youth and the SUV was slowing even more ahead of me and suddenly a TIRE APPEARED ON THE ROAD! A TIRE!! I swerved, trying to miss it too late, drove over it.
My front tire exploded and shot the front of the car up in the air. It slammed to the ground and the momentum dragged the rear tire over the SUV tire. It rupture and also dropped to the pavement with a thud. Not wanting to stop and try to get going again on rims, I drove the car, shaking, rattling, to the side of the road, parked it, got out, tried to get a breath. Shocked, surprised, too numb to realize I could have been flipped or sent sideways into the middle of both lanes.
My initial reaction broke a commandment or two, had nothing to do with love for the person WHO LEFT A TIRE ON THE ROAD AND DROVE OFF, leaving me to wonder how I'd get home without my phone to call for help.
I surveyed the damage. Both passenger side tires were shredded. I'd seen tire scraps left on the highway but never on the rims of my car. I busied myself trying to get the rear tire off and the "doughnut" spare put on so the car could be towed. Then I saw a truck stop down at the bottom of the hill where the SUV tire had bounced when I hit it. The Driver got out, PICKED UP THE BLOCKADE TIRE AND DROVE OFF. Too far to get the plate numbers. Free as a car with good tires on it.
I ran through a few more non-Christlike thoughts. Worse, I dwelled on them.
Thoroughly discouraged, I gathered my tire tools, tossed them in the trunk, slammed it and leaned on it, ready to scream, smash a few things and then walk a couple miles home in the cold air.
"Can I help?" someone asked.
He also drove a truck. He pulled up while I was leaning there in despair and I hadn't even noticed. He wore Carharts and camouflage gloves, a stocking cap pushed over his ears. Doe season was winding down and he cameby Garfield to join his friends in the woods. I told him what had happened and he offered me a ride home.
Riding to my home, we talked about the accident, hunting season and his church. I thanked him when he dropped me at the door.
Writing class sasys this is the time to make my cogent point. You can make a list: God always provides rescue; God wakes, even shocks us from our daily routine; God watches over us in the midst of disaster; never get stuff for your wife (Okay, not Biblical but it SHOULD be.).
But failure sticks in my mind. One sudden BANG! and I was off-kilter, sounding fallen and foolish, temper risen, fists formed. If the guy who lost the tire stopped to help, I might have beaten him ti death with the jack handle. I most certainly would have given him an earful of un-Christianity. My witness floundered. The fellow writing this book about love and human frailty and the power of God to change us stubbed his toe on his own work, hearing Paul say something about being careful what you teach.
If those were MY words or notions of Christian living or even just my ideas about life, I couldn't, in good conscience, publish a syllable or even a letter.
But it's not my creation. I didn't construct a theology or a new church or a sect. I only recorded the words of my Creator. I am the creation and I'm being renewed every day. My spirit regenerates like young cells. To fail once isn't fatal. In fact, failure reminds me who I am: mortal flesh suffering from a genetic defect called sin.
The same as you.
Don't, DO NOT become discouraged when you fall down running the race.
Don't look at "love on another" and walk away shaking your head.
Understand a simple truth: we're supposed to fail. We're meant to learn that we aren't perfect, but weak, small in the face of the universe, demented in the face of perfect sanity, flaming idiots in the presence of perfect intelligence.
We are imperfect.
We are not God.
Our failure makes every success clearly His own. Shows us that His way works.
"Don't be discouraged by failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid."
John Keats
When God wins, we do, busted tires and all.
Fall forward.
Fail upward.
Survive every crash. In love.
