A Day Like Any Other Day

It is easy to forget that death is always right around the corner, especially when you are young like I am.  I am not the most physically fit man in the world, but I am in decent health. I do not see my impending doom like a seventy year old man or a woman with cancer.   Death is what my parents will reach soon enough. But for me it is still decades away.

But this perspective is a lie. Death is always, at every moment, only a step away. This became clear to me as I drove home from vacation a back in January.  My wife took the picture at the top of the page out the front window of our 15 passenger two wheel drive van. I drove in snow like this for over six hours. I knew that at any moment we could slip and our van could roll. I watched in my mirror as semi-trucks hurtled down snow covered roads at 60 miles an hour while I was going 30. I got behind cars driving 10 miles per hour that created more of a risk than the fast drivers. I saw big trucks in ditches, cars overturned, and highway patrolmen helping stranded motorists. I felt my back tires slide numerous times. I felt the weight of the nine souls in my care.  

So how did my life change in that six hour brush with death? I prayed. I prayed like I rarely pray. I prayed for safety. I prayed for wisdom. I prayed for peace. When I finally got down my snow covered driveway and put the van in park, I thanked the Lord for keeping me and my family safe. When we got the van unloaded I gathered the family and we all thanked the Lord again.  Finally, I thought to myself, “Only God knows how close I was to death.”

Later that night it occurred to me that this day was no different than any other day.  God sustained and kept me as I drove in the snow. He sustains me and keeps me when the roads are dry. He keeps my family safe in the sunshine, just as he did when I could barely see five feet. He keeps me safe from crazy college kids (our town is full of them) just as he did from crazy truckers.  Every moment I am not in a ditch or wrecked on the side of the road or rolling my van means that the Lord has protected. Every morning when I wake up, the Lord has protected me throughout the night. Every evening when I sit down to eat God has hedged me in throughout the day. Every kiss I get from my wife means that he has covered her under his protective wings. Every child I get to tuck in at night means that their heavenly Father has given them to me for one more day.  

Why don’t I pray every day like I did that day in the snow? Why don’t I give thanks just for reaching my front door like I did that day? Because I forget that every day, all day, it is only God’s watchful care that keeps me and those I love. I forget that “all things come, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.” (Heidelberg Catechism Q.27). I saw that my prayer life is directly linked to my recognition of God’s providence. When I forget God rules, I cease to pray and give thanks. When I remember that God governs all, my prayer life gets a shot of adrenaline and each day ends in thanksgiving, no matter what the weather was like. 

Originally posted at Singing and Slaying.