A Weird Week

My weird week began, when my previously only occasionally irritating phone, decided on Saturday that it would become a permanent irritant and refuse to turn on. I don’t know why it stopped working, it just did. Knowing that a friend had some used T-Mobile phones lying around his house, I called to borrow one. Thankfully he agreed to allow me to use his daughter’s old phone until I can get a new one later this week. So now my ring tone is some crazy rap song and there are several teenage girls’ phone numbers in my possession. If someone listened or looked at the phone I am using without knowing the full story, I’m sure they would assume my name is “Pastor Creepy.” Weird!

The weird week continued when I was preaching in Sunday Morning’s second service—a sermon that was to be enhanced by my preaching in a darkened sanctuary with only a single light bulb to illuminate the message (you had to be here…); the only problem was that the light bulb worked for approximately 1/100th of a second. UGH! Thankfully, Pastor Kevin found an alternative lamp and after a minor delay the sermon was droning on. Still, it was not the way I envisioned the sermon to go. (By the way, in spite of the “technical difficulties” several people became Christ followers on Sunday Morning!)

The weird week rolled on when we received a call at the church that someone had hacked into our phone lines and had made hundreds of calls to (get this) Liechtenstein. You read that right: Liechtenstein. According to Wikipedia, Liechtenstein is one of the world’s smallest countries (about the size of Overland Park), has a smaller population than Lenexa and it is the world’s largest producer of false teeth and sausage casings (insert your own joke here). Liechtenstein was also the recipient of numerous phone calls from the Central Church of the Nazarene from Saturday Night until Sunday morning at 8 AM. Maybe there was some Liechtenstein phone-a-thon going on. Weird.

There were other weird things occurring this week like the temperature going from a pleasant 60 degrees to a freezer-like 30 degrees overnight. The wreathes that Karla had me put up when the weather was balmy last Saturday are now blowing in the wind and scraping on the windows. Twice now, I’ve awoken thinking some burglar is outside my bedroom (Quite honestly, if I were a burglar it would probably be easier to break in a first floor window rather than my second floor window, but in my sleep I’m not thinking logically). Speaking of Christmas decorations (the wreathes, remember?) my house looks like an elf convention gone badly—there are Christmas supplies everywhere. Weird!

I’ve been to hospitals, counseling sessions, and Tuesday night was the District Pastor’s Christmas Party. As you well know, pastors are “party animals”—thankfully the weirdness of the week did not include anyone doing anything that will cause them to lose their credentials. Although I must admit that our own Pastor Cory Stipp would have been elected as the best dressed if such an election were held. To quote the rapper on my borrowed phone, “He was looking fly.” Weird!

I know I am not alone. Famous people like Tiger Woods and football coaches, Bobby Bowden and Charlie Weis, also have had a weird week. Sometimes things just happen. Sometimes our weird week happens as a result of someone else’s behavior, sometimes we are the reason for our weird week, and sometimes life just happens that way.

Remember Paul’s words for weird weeks: So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, The Message) In other words, Hang in there in the weird and wacky weeks. God is in control. He’s on the throne. Keep trusting Him!