closer to that edge.

My car is having trouble. I'm not actually sure that it will start tomorrow morning. This morning, I guess.

It broke down. And I panicked. This is not a great time financially for big car stuff. I have an exam to get to in the morning. On and on. Then I realized...I've been praying for wisdom, and Godliness, and thanksgiving through stress. And now's the time. How much more important is a person's life, than my car, and I've written here about praying that those who have bodies wracked with cancer would lift their arms and praise Him.

I've written about how if God took every good thing I now possess, I would still have Him, and that is all there really is. I've written that I don't exist to be served but to serve Him, and that if this life were filled with nothing but strife, yet still I would fear God because He is God.

A car might seem a silly a thing to stress on. It is, and it isn't. But, I have the very palpable sense that God allows this sort of strife as a form of blessing.

I was at this bible study last night, and the rabbi we were listening to talked about how in the OT, leprosy was given as a consequence of sin. In at least one case, when a person whole-heartedly repented, she was delivered from the terrible disease.

I thought that, in a sense then, what an incredible blessing to have been given leprosy, to have been touched by God with such a conviction. Certainly, many others, all others really (and all of us), deserved such a consequence, but not all were given this opportunity to be touched, and turned by God towards repentance. Many simply lived on in sin, in ignorance of God's power and holiness.

Clearly, I don't think that my car breaking down is a consequence for sin meted out by God. Though shoddy craftsmanship is most definitely of the underworld. But, this is an opportunity to know God, to understand His sovereignty in my life, to put to the test all that I've said about the singularity of my purpose.

I stood in my kitchen this afternoon, thinking about the car, and I felt God speak peace to me. Peace, and challenge, almost as though He was saying, "You need to walk with Me in confidence here, because the waters are going to get really rough sometimes. And so this kind of thing cannot pull you under." So I asked, what should I do? "Love the people coming into your home tonight. Pray. Deal."

I guess it's funny to be grateful for a challenge. An annoying, costly kind of logistical challenge. But if challenge brings me closer to Him, I will celebrate it as whichever slim part of the plan I am able to understand.