a d'backs victory... and other holy moments

I admit it -- I was moping last night. Well, all day, to be perfectly honest. In one short conversation Sunday night all my excitement about moving into my new house just went completely down the drain. One of my new roommates bailed, and I was instantaneously body-slammed by a cruel new financial reality. Not fun. Not fun at all. Of course, there are other fish in the sea, they say, so I shouldn't lose any sleep over the one that got away. But this wasn't just a fish that fell off my hook as I was trying to reel it in -- this was a fish that jumped out of the icebox in the back of my truck as I was driving away from the riverbank after a long day of fishing and wriggled its little scaly body all the way back down to the water. I guess I should've remembered to close the icebox lid.

So yes, I spent the day moping, worrying, and all the other stupid, self-centered things we fallen humans do when things don't go the way we want them to. I know I was at work for nine hours yesterday, but I don't remember doing a bloody thing to earn my paycheck. I just remember scribbling away on a legal pad, trying to think of new waters to explore in my search for another elusive roommate fish.

The irony of my wallowing is that all the while I was "counseling" a friend of mine to remember God's promises and provision. We were emailing about Abraham and Isaac, about the difficult choices we have to make, about the seemingly impossible ways God asks us to trust Him, and I have to admit, I was talking a pretty good talk, but that very moment I knew I wasn't walking it. My hot air is renown (I'm a piper, after all), but my ability to relax and inhale isn't. I talked for hours encouraging my friend to trust God's provision, and all the while that legal pad full of my own provisional ideas was staring me in the face. So I shut up, took a deep breath, and chucked that legal pad in the trash. It was a holy and insecure moment.

What does all of this have to do with major league baseball, you ask? Well, not much, except that the D'Backs exciting victory over the Cubs last night (or as one Cubs-fan coworker more aptly put it this morning, the slaughter) shook me out of my doldrums and helped me refocus my attitude. There I was, sitting in the empty library of my new house, listening to the game through a phone conversation with my mom (they don't broadcast Arizona games here in Colorado), and as I found myself rejoicing over the final out, I realized that what I should really be rejoicing over was the very spot I was sitting in. God had brought me to this house! He hadn't lost track of me -- He knew right where I was sitting. He not only knew, He cared. He's always cared. He always will care. He cares even more about me than I do about the Diamondbacks. It was a holy and humble moment.

And then, just to put His special explanation point on the day, it began to rain. We haven't had rain in quite a while, but it came last night, and the coolness and relief it brought made me almost giddy. Rain has always been God's special calling card for me, His way of saying "And just to make sure you really understand that this is Me talking and that I always keep my promises..." I sat on the back steps of my new house, my bare feet getting wet as they stuck out from under the eaves, and I laughed at myself for all my stupid moping. It was a holy and peaceful moment.

God does provide -- He always has, and He always will. He provides absolutely everything we need -- whether it's a job, a home, a roommate, a soulmate... or just a good baseball game and a bit of rain.