Distractions, Thanksgiving, and Worship

My focus throughout this week has been worship.  I taught about it on Sunday (and even got to play a little bit of drums), wrote about it all week, and have focused on it throughout each day.  I’ve been quite purposeful about drawing near to God at the beginning of each day and doing whatever was necessary to stay there throughout the day.  It’s been a great week.

As I say that, I will admit, though, that the attempts to distract me have increased throughout the week, though.  Take Wednesday (Thanksgiving Eve) for example.  We had a good day of meetings, work, preparing for Pie Night and then enjoying time together with people while eating that pie.  It was a day of worship!  We were packed and ready to go to Cincinnati, so we left the building, went home, threw the bags in the C-Max, and headed out of town.  That’s when we encountered three distractions right in a row.

First of all, a deer ran out in front of our car.  It was a rather large deer and it clearly thought it could beat us.  It was wrong.  I think it hurt the car far more than our car hurt it.  The vehicle was still drivable (slowly), but it definitely couldn’t make the trip to Cincinnati.  Once we confirmed that everyone was ok, we drove back home and parked the car in the garage.

Next, we loaded all our luggage into our older van.  It has over 230,000 miles on it and burns through oil now, but it was the vehicle we had and it had been a trooper throughout it’s life.  So, we headed out again.  This time, I was driving a little slower than the speed limit and watching the margins much more for deer.  We approached the intersection at Indiana 2 and 100 South (we call it the evil intersection) when a car pulled out right in front of us.  We slowed almost to a complete stop before they cleared our lane and pulled on to route 2.  My mind flashed back to the time we were not able to stop at that intersection and had run into the other car.  This time the crisis was averted.

We drove down route 2 until we reached the intersection by I-65.  We stopped for gas.  I checked the oil.  The boys got some food for the trip.  We were ready for the “easy” part of the trip – driving the interstate.  I pulled on to the ramp to I-65 when the hood latch let go and the hood flew open.  The air at that speed smashed the hood into the windshield.  I slowed down, pulled over, checked to make sure everyone was ok, closed my eyes and put my head back on the headrest.  Nate later commented that he thought that was the closest he has ever seen me come to cussing.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was worshipping.

God had saved us three times that night.  When the deer dented our car, I flashed back to the Cincinnati stories of people killed from deer coming through windshields.  When the car pulled out in front of us on Route 2, I flashed back to our accident and the other accidents I’ve heard about taking place in that same spot.  When the hood flew open and our windshield shattered, I thanked God that it held together enough for us to drive the vehicle home (slowly) and be safe for the night.  I thanked God that we were all safe.  I praised God for the gift of time.  I asked God to lead us to use it well.  I worshipped.

Sometimes life is filled with more distractions than others.  We experience things that try to pull us away from God.  When we let them, though, those exact same things can help us draw near to God and worship Him.  This week, I worshipped.