One day I will teach the last (?) of our children to drive. When I do, I will use some of the principles I used as I drove for UPS. As irritated as we'd get having to recite these axioms, as hokey as we sometimes thought they were, they work! In many respects. One rule I've observed more with regard to life in general than driving, is Get the Big Picture.
The Christian life, in particular, encourages us to see "the big picture", to see beyond ourselves, beyond the moment to something more. There is always something --something as yet unseen --going on beneath the surface. Nothing is exclusive to us but our decision to follow. Even hardship and grief have their purpose. It should never be assumed God is not working something good for us or for those who live on this sphere with us. He is sovereign over everything, the ebb and flow of life, the seasons of lean and plenty.
I will leave you today with words uttered by Dr. John Donne shortly before he took leave of this mortal coil. When someone asked about his uncharacteristic silence --Why are you sad? --Donne responded:
"I am not sad; but most of the night past I have entertained myself with many thoughts of several friends that have left me here, and are gone to that place from which they shall not return; and that within a few days I also shall go hence, and be no more seen. And my preparation for this change is become my nightly meditation upon my bed, which my infirmities have now made restless to me. But at this present time, I was in a serious contemplation of the providence and goodness of God to me; to me, who am less than the least of His mercies: and looking back upon my life past, I now plainly see it was His hand that prevented me from all temporal employment; and that it was His will I should ever settle nor thrive till I entered into the Ministry; in which I have now lived almost twenty years—I hope to His glory,—and by which, I most humbly thank Him, I have been enabled to requite most of those friends which shewed me kindness when my fortune was very low, as God knows it was: and—as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude—I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requital. I have lived to be useful and comfortable to my good Father-in-law, Sir George More, whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise with many temporal crosses; I have maintained my own mother, whom it hath pleased God, after a plentiful fortune in her younger days, to bring to great decay in her very old age. I have quieted the consciences of many, that have groaned under the burden of a wounded spirit, whose prayers I hope are available for me. I cannot plead innocency of life, especially of my youth; but I am to be judged by a merciful God, who is not willing to see what I have done amiss. And though of myself I have nothing to present to Him but sins and misery, yet I know He looks not upon me now as I am of myself, but as I am in my Saviour, and hath given me, even at this present time, some testimonies by His Holy Spirit, that I am of the number of His Elect: I am therefore full of inexpressible joy, and shall die in peace.”
From The Life of Dr. John Donne, by Izaak Walton
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