There's a Reason They Call It Amazing

This is a small story about a couple of small mistakes that, in the end, caused no lasting damage. I offer it as witness to a grace beyond my comprehension, yet always within my reach.

- - - - - - - - - -

All I wanted to do was to create a file I could use to outline a special worship experience we’re hosting at our church Sunday night. All I had to do was enter identifying information about the worship’s elements and sequence.

It wasn’t that hard. In my many years of word processor use I had created thousands of such files. How hard could it have been?

First, we’ll sing THIS.....

Then we’ll sing THAT....

After which, we will pray.....

You don’t have to be a pastor to know how to type those lines. Even if arranging worship elements is not your thing, anyone who spent much time over a keyboard knows enough to get things like that right.

But I had a better idea.

Were this a word processing blog, I’d incite boredom with all the details, but this isn’t and I’m not wanting to wallow, so instead, allow me this brief re-creation of the scene of the crime: Instead of creating a document that was nothing more than a list of the things that would happen during the forthcoming worship, I decided to create a special kind of document, one that could be used to layout future services. This special form would have the basic order of things already in place – saving me some typing and leaving me only to fill in the blanks of the songs to be sung for that particular worship.

It was a great idea.

Except that we host this particular kind of worship only once a year, meaning my fill-in-the-blank thing will not get much use. And the next time we host I may want to do something totally different from what we do this time, resulting in the scrapping of the pre-arranged order’s of events replacement.

I should have just typed a list of the things we’re going to do Sunday....Especially if I was going to screw things up.

Before driving to the church this morning, I checked the contents of the flash drive on which I had saved my revolutionary new worship planning tool. It was there. I was pleased. Following my spiritual focus time at the office, it was time to use my new creation, to fill in the blanks.

But I couldn’t remember what went in the blanks. I had chosen songs to sing a few days ago, had even told our choir of the songs they’ll help lead, but that was two days earlier – a span of time sufficient for me to forget all kinds of things.

Of course, there was a written record of my choices; I knew I had handwritten my choices early in the week for eventual conversion to more readable printed text. But I couldn’t remember what I had done with that version. I feared – really, believed – I had mistakenly pitched it once I had created the fill in the blank thing the night before.

So the scene was a computer file asking me to fill in its blanks, and I with no response to the file’s request.


Then I realized our choir director had made note of the song selections as I shared them Wednesday night. Perhaps her notes were still in the choir loft.... I looked. They were! I was saved.

I returned to my desk, prepared to fill in blanks, when I caught glimpse of a padded portfolio that I had carried home the previous night. On a whim, I opened it to find....my handwritten version of the worship order.

Doubly equipped, I filled in blanks and moved into the rest of my day.

- - - - - - - - - -

This is so not an atypical story in my life. I lose things easily. I forget things quickly. I dis-organize best laid plans without a second thought, or even notice of what I’m doing. And those are just the most benign of my symptoms. Several times a week I remind myself of my utter, almost pitiable helplessness.

Yet every time I show my failing, every time I demonstrate my fallibility, and miraculously before I inflict irreparable harm on myself or others, God sends me a reminder or directs my attention to a saving path. For reasons I can’t explain and will never deserve, I incur only a fraction’s fraction of the consequences my helplessness deserves.

Today it was choir director’s notes and a padded portfolio. The weekend’s offered life preserver will no doubt take a different form. I just know there will be a next time...countless next times when I screw things up. Some little. Some large. All grace.


Pray with me:
I don’t know how you do it, God. And I can’t imagine why you do it. But you never stop pulling me out of fires of my own setting, holes of my own digging, messes of my own creation. You need to know, I’ll never get used to your love. May you never grow weary of giving it. In the name of Jesus, Amen.