July 8: Of Kung Fu Panda - "There are no accidents".

1 Chronicles 5:18-6:81
Acts 26:1-32
Psalm 6:1-10
Proverbs 18:20-21

You know what a "Dang it!" situation is. It's when you do the right thing and things fall apart; you make the right choice and set yourself back. You pick a line and it is the slowest. You move one over and your first line picks up, and you are stuck again. A really good example - years ago, I read a Peanuts cartoon - first 100 kids in line got free candy. Lucy is standing behind Charlie Brown, and she asks if she might go ahead. Charlie Brown, ever the gentleman, lets her cut in front of him...only to find Lucy is kid #100. The look drawn on Charlie Brown's face was the epitome of "Dang it!"

In today's NT reading, I suspect that if Paul had heard the conversation between Agrippa and Festus, the earthly part of him would have had a "Dang it!" moment. After Agrippa had heard Paul, and at which point Agrippa seems to be on the edge of conversion, he says "This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment." And then he turns to Festus and says "This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar."

Consider what must have been going through Paul's mind - he could have been free, free to go out and preach God's word to a broader audience, free to live and eat and sleep in conditions far better than prison, free from the threat of murder hanging over him.

I like to think, though, that Paul, more than anyone, understood last week's reflection - that what earthly eyes see as triumph and disaster are but two sides of the same coin of God's perfect will. And so while part of him might have wanted the freedom his choices had put beyond his grasp, he understood that it was God's will that had put him in this "Dang it!" moment, and he accepted it peacefully, even joyfully.

Yesterday my youngest son and I got up at 5am to drive a total of 3 hours and spend 3 more hours around a pool just so he could swim two events, each lasting less than a minute. At the start of his second event, I saw he wasn't at the starting block. He wasn't paying attention, and he missed it. He apologized, and said it was "an accident". Thoughts of all the effort to train, to get up early, to get there, all rumbled through my head followed by a loud, unspoken "Dang it!" I pray that I might learn to approach these situations as I think Paul did - acknowledging God is in control in all things and, consequently, there is no reason to think any situation is a "Dang it!" moment. Or as master Oogway said in Kung Fu Panda..."there are no accidents."



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