In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Chekov and Uhura have beamed into the reactor room on the aircraft carrier Enterprise to harvest radiation from the nuclear reactors. Due to failing power on the Klingon starship Scotty must beam them back one at a time. At 1:14:27 into the movie as the guards on the Enterprise are closing in Chekov makes an effort to contact Scotty to be beamed out of the reactor room making a desperate plea "Scotty, now would be a good time!" How often when things aren't going the way we think they should do we ask God to resolve the issue in the way that we think would be best. Like Chekov we declare "Now would be a good time!" for God to solve our problems.
A number of years ago while my family and I were experiencing a rough patch in our lives I remember receiving the first text message I ever received (yes, this does sound crazy but while I can't remember the exact date I can remember where I was, what I was doing, and what the text message said.) We were camped at General Sibley Park and Campground in Bismarck, ND. I had gotten up early and picked up my phone which had been charging overnight. The phone was a Samsung flip phone with a preview screen on the outside that showed a truncated preview of missed calls and messages. On the outside screen it showed "1 New Message" and a phone number I didn't recognize. I flipped the phone open and on the inside screen was a simple two word message - "Just Wait". I have no idea who sent it - I never did try to contact the unknown number - but I could almost hear God contradicting the conventional wisdom of "don't just sit there, do something" with "don't just do something, sit there!" Doing nothing and waiting on God was not something that came natural to me. I wanted to solve my own problems. Sometimes God needs us to be still so He can show us a path we may not have seen before.
Last Friday Lisa and I were finishing up a week of house hunting in Tennessee. Our car had been acting up a little bit throughout the week but on Friday it really started to get bad. I thought the transmission fluid might be a little low but couldn't figure out how to check it or add fluid (the owners manual and Google were generally unhelpful stating the transmission was not user serviceable and to seek out a qualified mechanic to perform the check.) A mechanic that I have used in the past was able to check my car out late Friday afternoon (we were planning on leaving EARLY Sunday morning to come home) and discovered the fluid level was fine but it appeared to have metal filings in it meaning the transmission needed to be rebuilt or replaced - not the message I wanted to hear three hours before sunset on Friday with an 850 mile trip scheduled for Sunday morning. After checking with family to see if someone had a spare car we could drive back to Texas we decided to check into renting a car one way. We had another car in Texas and we were going to be coming right back to Tennessee in about four weeks towing the car behind the moving truck. It turned out that it was cheaper to rent a car to drive back to Texas than it was to rent a car hauler to tow the car back to Tennessee. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea of having to pay for a transmission repair but through that mechanical malfunction God revealed a more simplified, less stressful, and less costly method of getting one of our cars to Tennessee.
As we contemplated what happened two scripture passages come to mind, Isaiah 40:31 "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint," and Proverbs 3:5 & 6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." It was a good reminder to me that while I thought "God, now would be a good time" God was saying "don't just do something, sit there."
