PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

June 5, 2024

WHEN EVERYTHING FALLS INTO PLACE

After twice doing it myself, this summer I hired someone to stain my deck.  About a month ago she came one day to do all of the prep work.  Since then she has been waiting for four successive days without rain to complete the job.

Before the lady stains it, the deck needs a full day without rain to dry out.  It will take her another day to do the work and then two days for the stain to adequately dry.  In addition the second day of the four can’t be a Sunday or a holiday.

This May did not have any four day period when it did not rain.  Even three day dry spells were hard to come by.  The work should get done before it becomes really hot.  The second coat of stain needs to be applied wet.  When the temperature is over ninety degrees, the stain tends to dry too quickly to apply the second application.

We are still waiting for four days when everything will fall into place so that the work can be completed.  Still hard to believe that such a confluence is so rare in May or June.

The difficulties getting my deck stained got me to thinking about how difficult it is to score runs in major league baseball.  For good hitters there is about one chance in three they will be able to get on base during any one at bat.  The greatest probability is they will get to first with a single, a walk, be hit by the pitcher, or reach on a fielder’s choice.

In most cases to score a single run, a team would have to have at least two, or more likely three, players get on base in the same inning.  Even if three players might reach, there is the possibility that one of them might be retired by being picked off or erased as a result of a double play.

To score more than one run in an inning is more problematical, especially when a number of those would come to bat the likelihood of getting on base would be less than one chance in three. The chances of a really big inning are rare.

At the end of a baseball game the number that occurs most frequently by a wide margin for the number of runs scored an inning is zero.  A number of factors have to fall into place to score a single run.  For a really big inning, everything has to fall into place.

While I was the pastor of the Albany United Methodist Church I was a teacher of the Bethel Bible Series.  The title for the first New Testament study was “In the Fullness of Time.”  The thesis of the chapter is that a number of factors came together when Jesus was born that made it possible for Christianity to spread from a small Middle Eastern nation to ultimately reach the ends of the earth.

First, because of the conquests of Alexander the Great, there was a common language, Greek.  Most of the New Testament was originally written in this language and there was a Greek version of the Old Testament readily available.

A second factor was the unity created by Roman rule.  It provided for peace and good roads that allowed Christians to easily travel from one place to another in relative safety.

The final factor was the Jewish dispersion.  Synagogues were to be found throughout the Roman Empire.  They provided a starting place for Christian evangelists to begin to plant the seeds of the new faith.

There are so many factors that prevent a plan from coming together that it is rare when it does happen.  Be it trying to find four days to stain a deck, scoring runs in a major league baseball game, or spreading the Good News, it is a rare occasion when everything falls into place.  Such times give reason to rejoice and give thanks.

Postscript, sometimes everything falling into place can have terrible consequences, such as a “Perfect Storm.”  But this is for another time.

(This article was originally published June 5, 2011.  Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)