Life Matters - May 27, 2026
I’m one of those happy people enjoying life so much that we’re never in a hurry to get someplace else. Which causes, at times, what the more time-conscious among us belatedly callbeing late. Being married to one such time-conscious lady has caused me, with time, to become a more time-conscious guy. But trying to be timely takes a lot of brain time. Since I have no brain down-time to give and have to find brain time-slots to remember about being on time it follows that I am not always…well…you probably guessed it, on time.
There is an event, however, that none of us will be late for. Lifestyle choices may well cause us to be early and lifestyle choices may well postpone the date of our physical demise but all of us will be there at our own personal end of time. Time waits on nobody.
When I was a teenager I felt invincible. Until I didn’t. I did some crazy stuff because of that feeling of invincibility and the pushing aside of thoughts about what could happen if I made just one wrong move…
I am now a long way down the track from those ’invincible’ teen years. I have come face to face with the passing of time, the frailty of my strong frame and its fragile organs. I gaze aghast at my reckless past. And thank God for sparing the life of one certain reckless teenager who dumbed down and numbed himself by ignoring eternity. Until he couldn’t.
Yes, there were times when I couldn’t. And then there was that fateful evening when I sensed God in a way that proved to be a major turning point in my heretofore careless life. A sensing that I intensely knew, if I were to ignore it, that I would do so at the peril of my whole being – spirit, soul, and body.
It was one of those gorgeously beautiful early-summer evenings at a friend’s family’s farm somewhere in the rural Honeybrook, Pennsylvania area. A group of us guys lounged, amongst a few pieces of light-duty small-farm equipment by the barn, as we discussed a wide range of topics. I became the center of attention when someone brought up the car I had bought recently, asking how I like it? I said the engine is smaller than the one I had before it but that it does have a lot of snap. The topic switched to car engines and before I saw it coming I was challenged to a race on Route 340 by a friend with a Dodge Charger and the same size engine. I was uneasy about racing on two-lane 340 but in the excitement of the moment, I agreed.
The other guy was a half-length ahead of me on the takeoff but as we varoomed west on 340 the race tightened. We started up a long hill with me in the passing lane. The sun had set and our headlights pierced the darkness as the ‘neck and neck’ cars pierced the night air. Most of the long hill stretched ahead of us as this determined driver’s car began to pull ahead bypainfully small increments. I thought I could pull ahead and into the right lane before the top of the hill…then I thought I’m not going to make it into the right lane before the top of the hill…then I thought I’d be able to see the forward beam of headlights if there were an oncoming vehicle…suddenly there were headlights in my face…and then they were past…I was in the right lane ahead of Sam’s car…I no longer cared who won…I slowed…Sam passed…I pulled off to the side of the road…ahead of me Sam made a u-turn and went back the way we had come. I followed him, my mind doing business with God. I had been thinking until the headlights… (I discovered later that a slight downgrade opposite side of the hill had obscured those headlights) when headlights were full in my face… thinking stopped…it was as if Someone else took the wheel…
When I arrived at the youth gathering farm again a tight circle of guys were gathering around Sam and as I approached he was earnestly regaling the night’s racing events. As Samapproached the climax of the story…headlights popping over the crest of the hill right in front of my car…he shook his head in wonder… ‘Billy’ (my nickname at the time) ‘sure kept his head together – he came over in front of me so fast and so skillfully that while his front wheels straightened on the road his rear wheels slid sideways off the road and back out.’
Sam went on about my skillful driving but I barely heard. God was knocking on the door of my heart…scenes of other fate-defying moments were flashing through my mind – correcting the feelings of pride being unknowingly stoked by my friend Sam.
I believed in my heart that God had moved my speedometer-needle-buried car out of harms way. In that moment God spoke to my conscience and I believed, to the depths of my soul, that if I drew this glory to myself…then God’s protection would be removed from me. Something akin to humility softened my heart.
I spoke up. I told the now quiet group of guys what really happened. That God had taken over. That I have no recollection of doing anything. It was all God…
In that moment my conscience reconnected with reality. In that moment my conscience reawakened. It was a defining moment – a correcting moment – my feelings of invincibility slipped away…they have never returned.
Life Matters!