My MacGyver Wife & Our MacGyver God

Have you ever been out of town when it seems like all Hades breaks loose at home?  Our family always plans for the most unexpected things when I’m gone over the summer.  One year my wife went into pre-term labor while I was on a mission trip.  Another year the wheel fell off our car as my wife drove over the JFK Causeway, almost sending her and my two young sons over the edge of the bridge and into the Gulf.  One year our city was evacuated for a hurricane the day before we were to leave…

My wife has learned to be pretty resourceful in my absence.  She stopped her labor.  She towed the car.  She packed camp luggage amidst our evacuation supplies and left me there when she returned home.  She is a fully capable woman who doesn’t need me to fix one thing for her.  Usually she is fixing stuff for me.

But that never impedes my feeling like I MUST DO SOMETHING when things go amiss and I’m away from home.

This year, my wife didn’t go to camp with us.  She had an opportunity to participate in a ministry opportunity that we knew had been given by God – so she abandoned her plans join us in Colorado for a week of adventure camp in order to pursue a different call God had given her.  (Incidentally, in twenty years, I’ve done this trip five times and she’s never been able to attend…a fact she rarely lets me forget!)  The day before she was to fly out, she found out a clerical error had been made and her flight had not been booked.  Now in a normal city, this might not be such a big deal.  But we live on the edge of the earth.  It can be difficult to get flights to and from anywhere on any kind of time schedule that’s convenient for the receiving end of the flight.  Not only that, but she was FINALLY going to get to join me for this amazing camp opportunity – and it appeared that she had foregone that opportunity for nothing.

In addition, she woke up with an abscessed tooth.  I knew when I got the text saying she was going to the dentist, it was bad.  Have you seen those cartoons where the title character gets hit in the face with a frying pan and his or her teeth just crumble into a billion pieces as they fall out of said mouth?  Yeah, that could happen to Katie and she STILL wouldn’t go to the dentist.

So a perfect storm had ensued at home – I was stuck on the side of a mountain three states away and in roaming service, if I was lucky enough to have service at all.  There was literally not a thing I could do.  I was sharing this frustration with my leadership team…in a very frustrated way.  One of my leaders said ’Wow – my cousin works at such-and-such airline, but they don’t fly out of Corpus.  I wish I could pull some strings for you.’  Then, in an amazing display of wisdom, she said ‘I guess we just need to pull the right strings. We should pray.’

Duh.  What a doofus. Griping had been my string of choice.  Praying, honestly and ashamedly, hadn’t even occurred to me.  I didn’t need to fix a thing.  Not because my wife is like the MacGyver of youth ministry spouses.  Not because it was up to me to make something happen.  Not because we had planned for every eventuality.  Simply because God was in control.

I seem to forget – on a pretty regular basis – that nothing in my life takes Him by surprise.  All my days are numbered – he knows all my hairs, gray and otherwise – not a tooth falls to the ground that He doesn’t know about it.  He had it all under control – even if it didn’t turn out the way WE had envisioned it would.

So I just spent the next few hours praying in between hiking, luggage unloading, cooking dinner, and sitting in the Jacuzzi (hey – I had already spent my one night in a tent!)  When I finally got cell service again – a ticket had been purchased, a tooth had been pulled, a prescription had been administered and luggage was locked and loaded and waiting for the airport.  Apparently, not only do I have a MacGyver-wife, I also have a MacGyver God.  May I never forget it!

Get In The Water

This summer our students spent a week in Colorado hiking, rappelling, climbing, and rafting.   It was an amazing adventure experience – especially for our ministry, located at sea level,      with warm gulf water and sand dunes – to see God through the glory and grandeur of the Rocky Mountain range.

The first day there, we suited up for our eight mile hike.  The air was crisp and clean.  The fragrant mountain breeze cooled us, seemingly at our every request, as we hiked.  The trees provided a glorious canopy of shade since most of us felt even closer to the sun than usual.  The landscape was nothing short of miraculous.

Trees towered.  Pine needles blanketed the ground.  Boulders beckoned the weary to rest.  This landscape was so very foreign to beach dwellers.

Equally alien were the rushing rivers and streams.

Living on the beach, we are no strangers to powerful water.  There is nothing more soothing, relaxing, calming than the sound of the ocean as it meets the beach, each time as though it were the first time.  But this water was different.

Watching it rush through its designated route, I couldn’t help but think about God.

This water was powerful.  Pulling large stones from their hiding places.  Making rough edges smooth.  Sometimes creating a difficult route for fish to get where they thought they should be.

This water was renewing.  As I watched its mighty flow, it was obvious that what was in the water where I sat just a moment ago was now far downstream.  It made me wonder how much change the bank had seen as it sat silently watching the river-friend work its renewal.  Microbes swept away in the rushing current.  Tress that used to be upstream relocated downstream.  Silt carpeting the river bottom that once belonged to the mountain.  The water changes everything.

And then I thought about my students – seeing this kind of water, some for the very first time.  There was no doubt they could see its power – its renewing properties…even from far away.  At times, we were so far up the mountain that the stream looked like a ribbon of white flowing through the valley.  But you could hear the power in its voice as it sang its song to nature.  When we got close enough to sit at the water’s edge, there was no denying its powerful force as it rushed to its final destination.

And it broke my heart.  As I listened to the majestic water’s roar, watched it change everything in its path, I realized a devastating truth.

The water doesn’t really work if you don’t get in.  I am praying that my students experience the refreshing, renewing, life-giving water from a personal, intimate vantage point.

It is one thing to recognize how beautiful and glorious the rushing water is from the safety of shore.  It’s a completely different matter to allow the current to sweep you away – smoothing your rough edges – changing the direction you thought you were going – renewing everything.

I am praying that our students experience THAT kind of water – the deafening roar of life anew – the panic of going in a completely different direction than planned – life-altering, life-giving, living water.  I want them to know THAT kind of water long after we return to the beach waters of the gulf.