The Lost, the Edge, and the Held
One man’s financial future was in my sweaty hand this past week. He didn’t know it but I had a stack of blank checks with his name on them clutched in my hand while I was running down the road. A particular shiny vinyl book caught my eye and rather than chalking it up to yet another piece of litter I swung around to take a peek.
As it turned out it was a neighbor’s checkbook and while I had another 2 miles to go I was going to trot past his house. So with all of his money in my gloved hand I kept on rolling and swung into his driveway to return the lost to its rightful, and happy, owner.
No one was home so I tossed it in his mailbox and went up the road and on with my day.
Later on my wife, Jan, walked by and saw a rather distraught man sitting in his truck in the same driveway. She asked if he had lost his checkbook and his shoulders sank and head bowed. That was enough to know that he did indeed lose a checkbook and potential a pile of money. But after he said he did, and Jan said that it was in the mailbox, his head lifted and he could ramble about the whole ordeal of sitting it on his trucks bumper before taking off towards town for errands. As it turns out checkbooks are kind of clingy to bumpers but the darn railroad tracks can launch anything into the weeds. Putting your financial future into gravity, physics, and checkbooks isn’t recommended! It’s good to reunite the lost with where it belongs.
The whole ordeal brought up another one of Josh’s greatest misses with Jan. She laughed when she brought up my whole “phone on the bumper” trick for 40 miles. That situation was at a peak hectic time of life. Two young boys, a new-to-us adopted mutt, two retail stores, and life was all about running and gunning! That’s how I found myself on the highway in the pre-dawn hours, rumbling towards a town 40-miles away. My plan was to drive into the town, hook up the 30-foot trailer we used for our retail stores, weave through town, and haul booty back in time to unload it and make it home in time for church. If life was a race I was putting forth maximal effort.
Once at the site I dropped the trailer on the hitch, plugged in the electric cord, attached the safety chains, and yanked it through the city streets, trying not to snag a curb, parked car, or any person unfortunately up and out at that time of the morning. I rolled onto the highway and reached for my phone to let Jan know I was on my way home…just on schedule!
Except my phone was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t in a pocket. Or on the floor. Or between the seats. It was nowhere. And the last time I checked phones not only cost a lot but they have a lot of information on them; so much so that to lose one would be a catastrophe! I had my life on that phone and here I was flying blind, unable to communicate, and generally upset that I was so hurried that I lost my phone.
Anxiety ensued but I kept rolling. And I swung into the parking lot and backed the trailer into its spot. I reversed my previous order, made sure everything was unhooked and drove over to the store to toss some stuff inside. When the tailgate flopped down my phone popped up off the bumper, kinda like it was saying “SURPRISE!” and fell onto the ground. It seems as though my phone was content to ride 40 miles perched on the edge of a bumper at highway speeds while I fretted and sulked in the cab of the truck 10 feet away. It wasn’t the typical way to carry a phone but it worked. Unconventional? Yes! Did it work out ok in the end? Also yes!
These days I have one of those slick phone holders for INSIDE a vehicle. It uses a magnet. All you have to do is get your phone somewhat close and it sucks the phone into secure storage. I’m sure there are even better phone holders but the idea is basically the same; hold on to that phone through all the bumps of the day and allow the phone to do its thing safe and secure!
The lost checkbook, the bumper riding phone, and the robust safety of modern phone holders paints a picture of a life of faith. We can be lost…but reunited with the one that has our name written on His hand. We can profess to have faith yet find ourselves riding on the edge. That’s a constant reminder that just because we believe doesn’t mean it will be easy! And finally, we can feel the embrace and security of a Father that loves us, that clings to us, that won’t let us go.
You may feel like you’re stuck in the “checkbook” part of life. Doubting, questioning, maybe just hanging out in the bushes along the road somewhere doing life. But you have value, worth, and a name. And a place to belong. And the best part? You don’t have to write a check to get where you need to be! It’s already been paid.
Maybe you are riding on the bumper and barely hanging on? It’s easy to be anxious. Disappointed. Crippled by the closeness of calamity. And yet you aren’t going over the edge! Although the timing is a mystery you never know how far you can go living on the edge and living by faith. It defies a lot of conventional thinking, logic, even odds and science, but it’s a living testimony. People need to see that lived out.
Maybe you’re reading this and can most relate to feeling held and secure like my magnetic phone holder. Not necessarily in your circumstances but just in your spirit. That’s good! Hold on to the one that Holds you. Get pulled in, held, and just…be.
The lost can return, the edge isn’t the end, and the hand of God will never let you go. Believe it.
