Friday the 13th. Are you hiding under your bed, with only the glow of your laptop's screen lighting your room? Are you defiantly walking under ladders and finding black cats to cross your path? Or are you treating this day like all others?
How did Friday the 13th become unlucky anyway? According to Wikipedia, could have a religious background--Judas was the thirteenth guest at the Lord's last supper, and Friday was the day of crucifixion. Might have something to do with a battle fought and lost on October 13th, 1305. May even be a numerology thing for all I know. One thing I do know:
This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.
Whatever comes my way in this 13th day of July, I know comes from the creator of all things--who continually provides for me: home, sustenance, clothing, and family. God is good! But whatever befalls me, however terrible and random, does so also with God's knowledge - and yet not apart from God's concern and abiding, healing presence. The evil, the bad, the unlucky are all aberrations --distortions of the goodness of creation brought on by our turning from God and following our own self-serving path.
What about disease, you ask? That occurs with God's knowledge too--tearful knowledge. Does sin cause disease? Yes and no. No--Jesus said that neither the man born blind nor his parents sinned and caused his blindness. And yet corporate greed [not protecting workers] and the misuse of firearms are sins that can cause infirmity. So yes. But we digress--another day for this topic.
Luck. Superstition. Do you believe in it? Can you be in the right place at the right time--or wrong place? Or were you preordained to be there? Irresistibly drawn by your destiny? Here's what I think - those are the ditches on the road of how life works. Go to far to either side and you'll be in trouble. If it's all luck--then there either is no God, or we have one that isn't very involved. If it's all destiny nothing I do will make a difference, so why try? Better to stay in the middle.
We needn't fear a number or a day. We should give thanks for it, and make it our business to dedicate all that we do in it to the God who stands outside of time, waiting, watching, holding his creation in his arms--comforting the sad and sick, smiling along with the winners and snaggers of the best parking slot! God's providence is what we can rely on--come fair or foul.
Can you think of thirteen reasons to praise God this Fri the 13th? Here's mine:
1 It's a beautiful day
2 My mom gets out of the hospital today
3 It's not hot out
4 VBS Day is really coming together (shameless advertising)
5 I pastor a truly remarkable church
6 Lisa
7 Erik and Sarah
8 grace--couldn't do without it
9 Music - I'm listening to Trading My Sorrows
10 Pets - we got to go visit a screechy old love of a cat tonight
11 that God walks with me in life
12 food (especially pizza)
13 that we needn't fear senseless things that others tell us are a threat.
Happy 13th!
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