This wild ride

I’m flying to Canton, Ohio, this weekend for conversations with the superintendents of yearly meetings in Evangelical Friends Church – North America (EFC-NA). We’ll be discussing the future of this organization and its member churches as well as ways to help Barclay Press become a self-sustaining work among Friends. I would appreciate your prayer. The truth is that Barclay Press relies heavily on financial support from each of the six yearly meetings that make up EFC-NA. We will be hard-pressed to make changes. But we must. I am convinced that facing into tough spots and making difficult decisions can open creative potential for growth, efficiency, and efficacy. I am praying that will be what happens (or at least begins to happen) during our time together this coming weekend.

In this morning’s Fruit of the Vine, Dan Cammack shares a story that speaks to my concern. It’s a travel story, one in which Dan and a missionary “are hurtling down a narrow mountain road in the back of an ambulance.” The jeep they started with developed a leak in the right front tire, and “there was no spare ... so we flagged down the ambulance.” There are no seatbelts, and “the young man at the wheel drives like a maniac!”

“This wild ride is exactly why I ask the saints to pray for safety,” Dan writes, and it’s a reminder for us that no matter how comfortable we may feel, the reality is that “life and death are often just a matter of centimeters ... [and] death is always closer than we realize, even when we’re in what we think is the safety of our homes.”

Dan’s message isn’t intended to scare us. This is reality. We’re on a journey, and there is danger along the way. A flat tire. A narrow road. An ambulance with room for a few extra passengers.

We know where we’re headed, but we don’t know if we’re going to make it, and “the young man at the wheel drives like a maniac!” That's why it’s a comfort to be reminded that “our lives are truly in God’s hands wherever we are.”

I’ll be praying for you, and I hope you’ll be praying for us at Barclay Press as well. This is a wild ride. It’s also kind of scary. And I need help remembering that my life is in God’s hands.

Eric Muhr