surprise!

I was walking out of town yesterday evening, wondering about a place to sleep (and if I had enough money to make it through the week), when a car pulled over on the highway. And the guy offered me a ride. It was a four-lane divided highway, and I was walking on the far side, so he had had to turn around and come back to ask me this. "I know what it's like to be out there walking." He said he was going all the way to Toledo, to see the fireworks.

At first I balked. I didn't want to be dropped off in downtown Toledo so late in the day. And I hadn't looked that far ahead on the map, which meant I wouldn't know where I was or where I needed to go. So he said he could take me to the far side of Toledo. I thought for a minute.

What the heck.

So I suddenly went from 3 mph to 65 mph. The towns I had planned to walk through in the next few days flew past, and we talked. Don is in security and is also a volunteer fireman. I found out field fires can be a big problem around there. And I told him quite a bit about my life. It was dinner time, so he offered to buy me a burger, and as we talked and kept driving, he then offered to take me all the way to Ann Arbor. He said he had time to do that and still make it back for the fireworks.

I don't think Don is a Christian. But he was enthusiastic in his help. "You do something good for someone," he said, "and someone else does something good for you." I told him that was a good thing to believe. And I believe God backs it up.

We talked about many things: how Jesus taught his followers to act, having the courage to take a risk and trust others, and being willing to drop our plans and accept the opportunity that presents itself. That's crucial if we are to recognize what God is offering us:

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain"; whereas you do not know about tomorrow....

Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills..." (Jam 4.13-15)

But yesterday's adventure was not over when Don dropped me off in Ann Arbor. I'd assumed I could call Michael and have him pick me up. But no one was home. I didn't remember exactly how to get to his house, and I didn't have a detailed map of the city. So I stopped in the first gas station--and there on the wall was a big Ann Arbor map.

As I was walking to their house, the thought occured to me that they may be away for the holiday weekend. Maybe I could camp out in their back yard until they got back? But then I remembered, when I had written to tell Michael I'd be here next weekend, he had said if they're not home I could let myself in with their hidden emergency key. At the time, I'd thought that was a superfluous detail.

So I'm here with the cats. A week early. "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town...'"