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Note: You can also find Matt's Weekly Devotional on our website.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2025

“You are indeed my rock and my fortress;

for your name's sake lead me and guide me,

take me out of the net that is hidden for me,

for you are my refuge.

Into your hand I commit my spirit;

you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.”

–– Psalm 31:3-5


Call me a crusty ol’ galoot, but I still contend that the golden age of cartoons was during the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies era –– Foghorn Leghorn, Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Road Runner and company. Their combined exploits were both original and predictable at the same time, and as with the victim in a paintball game, resurrection was as common as a foiled plot. Everyone knew that Wile E. Coyote, though book smart and industrious, was seldom wily and never successful. Road Runner was always at least one step ahead of him, both literally and figuratively. The questions in the viewer’s mind at the beginning of each episode were –– What elaborate plot would he piece together with the items he ordered from his Acme catalog, and how would his ingenious plan fall apart, typically crashing down upon him? 


In each episode, there was this inevitable scene when time would pause for just a moment as Wile E. Coyote would look at the camera, his eyes announcing his realization that this is going to hurt … real bad … and there was to be no escape as the shadow above his head grew larger and larger just before the anvil landed on his head, or we would see his toes, wiggling to find some footing only to discover there would be no ground for his toes to find until he dropped some 800 feet to the canyon floor.


Time halts –– a brief moment; a clarity of doom; resigned to inevitability; a space only wide enough for two words –– “Oh (insert preferred expletive here)”


Perhaps you know such moments. You didn’t lift your foot high enough for the stair in front of you. You’ve stepped out from the curb only to realize your foot is now quickly descending into a pothole brimming with water. When I was young, I could sidestep the pothole; catch myself before my face smacked the staircase; even take a hit and bounce up when tackled. Those days have passed, and so now when I cross that tipping point, there is no escape from the inevitable result –– a hard thump. You can see it happening but there is nothing you can do about it. The body can no longer react as quickly to what the brain recognizes –– this is going to hurt. Consequently, I have more compassion for Wile E. Coyote than I once did, knowing that intentions sometimes are foolish, missteps will be made, plans go awry, there are consequences whether our stumbles are literal or figurative, and sometimes life gives you stitches, bandages, limps, and pain, leaving you little constructive recourse outside of climbing back up and hobbling on. 


Such knowledge only expands my gratitude for those times when missteps are avoided, maybe even recognized as unwise beforehand, and thus not taken. Such gratitude does not redound to me, for I surely would have plodded forth into disaster. Rather, that gratitude is targeted toward God whose Spirit counters our imprudent intuitions, and thus, enables us to discern the difference between wisdom and folly, particularly when the folly which seems so attractive, only hides a net that will surely ensnare us if we heedlessly plow ahead and take that next step. Whether that counterintuitive grace appears at innocuous junctures or momentous occasions, God is worthy of our praise. “You are indeed my rock and my fortress … Into your hand I commit my spirit.”

Grace and Peace,

Matt  


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