PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

April 13, 2025

PIVOT

On June 5, 2024, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were left for an eight-day mission at the Internation Space Station.  Because of complications they did not return for 286 days.  Butch missed important events in his daughter’s life.  Suni also missed important events in her family’s lives.  The news had a running commentary on their stay and who to blame.

In an interview by Bill Hemmer for Fox News’ America’s Newsroom Williams said “My first thought was we’ve just got to pivot.  If our spacecraft was going to go home based on decisions made here, and we were going to be there up ‘till February, I was like, ‘Let’s make the best of it’.”  Wilmore put it this way: they needed to look forward and rectify what had been learned.

While people on earth were pointing fingers, the two astronauts were pragmatic and committed themselves to make the best of their situation.  We don’t very often learn from our victories but can learn much from our losses if we are willing to see each setback as one more step to ultimate success.  In a television interview Wilmore said that everybody has a piece in the failure.  There was plenty of blame to go around. Elon Musk whose SpaceX rocket brought the astronauts home commented following one of his rocket’s failures that lessons were learned and they were just a little closer to success.

Diane and I are using a daily devotional that was inspired by the writings of Henri J. M. Nouwen (Creative Communications).  The text for Wednesday of the fourth week of Lent was Psalm 30:5: “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”  The devotion uses the following quotation from Nouwen.  “The paradox of expectation indeed is that those who believe in tomorrow can better live today, that those who expect joy to come out of sadness can discover the beginnings of a new life in the center of the old, that those who look forward to the returning Lord can discover him already in their midst (Henri J. M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude, p. 59).”

Joseph in his life had to pivot at least three times because of adversity.  The first when he was sold into slavery by his brothers (Genesis 37:12-38).  He went from a position of privilege to one of servitude. The second incident was when he was falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39:1-23).  He went from the palace to a prison.  The third incident was when he was summoned by Pharaoh to interpret his dreams (Genesis 41:1-40).  He went from bondage to leadership.  With each change of circumstances Joseph looked forward not backwards, how he might make the most of his situation.

Most of us have heard of Ford’s Model A and Model T. What is very often overlooked are the Models B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, and S.  Each one of them brought Ford just a little closer to the Model T.  He learned something from each of these models which helped him reach his goal, the Model T.

We live in a world that is very intolerant of mistakes and failures, especially in politics.  There is a cry of “fire him” when a public official makes a blunder.  No one can stand such scrutiny.  It is impossible to be perfect in an imperfect world.  The question is do we pivot when misfortune overtakes and look forward to the future and not back to the past.

(Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)