The Sudbrock Scoop

Honestly forging forward

For years we have struggled to develop a relationship with our neighbor, Andreas. No matter how we attempted to be friendly, his answer to almost every attempt at greeting was met with a grunt of acknowledgement at best.

Thursday night I went to pick up Chelli from the area college where she teaches English to seniors. It had snowed all day long, but the streets were still drivable. Upon our return, and as I was maneuvering the parking lot our car began to slide and I automatically hit the brakes to no avail. Sure enough, I slide into Andreas' car. My first thought was, "Oh no, anyone but Andreas."

Ironically I was working on my message for Sunday and one verse had been standing out.

John 12:27 ¶ Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.

In one way this verse spoke volumes that God has a plan that sometimes isn't a bed of roses. Knowing that God has a plan doesn't always give immediate and complete peace. Christ even bore this out in His statement that His soul was troubled.

On the other side Christ, our leader, gives us encouragement to stay the course that God has planned. No matter the cost!

Andreas' car had a few scratches and a little, almost non-detectable crease in the bumper. It was at night and most were in bed or on the way. The human thing to do would have been to walk away and pretend that nothing had happened. But then what about God's plan? Nothing comes into a Christian's life without God's design.

I couldn't bring myself to wake my already unfriendly neighbor to tell him that I had scratched his one year old pride and joy VW. I decided to take care of it in the morning. I woke up at 5 to assess the actual damage. Normally, Andreas is quite noisy and slow in his preparation to take his son to school. Not so on this Friday. Even with our front door open, I missed making contact in the morning. That served to extend my intrepidation of telling him the bad news.

Christ did say that I needed to take up my cross and follow him.

Later in the day, I was on my way out and stopped at the end of the drive to set up my cell phone for driving. As I made ready to pull out I noticed that Andreas had been waiting for me to get out of his way so that he could pull in the drive. Oh great, I thought. Now he is pre-frustrated with me. This is going to make telling him that I scratched his car so much easier.

When I returned, he was outside and I finally was able to point out the scratch and he took it very well.

I have two prayer requests.

1. That God will glorify Himself through this so that Andreas can see Him through me.

2. That God will help me bear the cost of fixing his car. The repair costs are just above my deducible. Not worth the risk of raising my insurance, but still not an easy hit to take.

No matter the costs,

Paul