The Day Murphy Proved His Point

This week Holley charged us with describing a current, typical day. I must admit that today was not exactly typical, but days like today do make me laugh at life in ministry and stand in wonder at the God we serve.

I work at our local church, so Easter week tends to be full of extra work done during a shortened work week. Even with the extra, I was feeling pretty good about the amount of work I needed to complete when I walked into the office. What I did not realize, however, is that Mr. Murphy had decided to be my shadow in order to enlighten me about his law.

After working for about an hour, one of my essential computer programs locked up and soon my entire computer was not responding. After 30-45 minutes and a few information loss scares, I was back to work.

A while later our printing service delivered the paper I needed to print our weekend worship folders. The paper was not the normal weight or sheen, but he assured me it would work just the same. When I went to print on the paper, however, it smeared everywhere. And then continued to smear on every other normal piece of paper sent through afterward. Awesome. The solution was relatively simple, just time-intensive, and while it was frustrating, it did make me 20 minutes late for my coworkers' Easter celebration lunch.

The afternoon started calmly enough. By this point I knew I would end up working after hours, but I still thought I would make it home before dinner. I moved from working at my desk to finishing a project in the auditorium, but Murphy followed me. 

This time everything went smoothly for me. My coworker wasn't so lucky. He ran up into the sound booth and didn't realize our electrician was working beneath it. My coworker stumbled into the trap door and ended up flat on his face. Murphy's law is an equal opportunity offender.

Not long after his fall, I found out our printer ran out of ink, and somehow we didn't have the usual spare cartridge. Our office manager scrambled and, by the grace of God, found the ink we needed, but this ensured my day would be much longer than I anticipated.

Nate was a gem and brought food to church for us. He headed in to worship practice while I finished my week's work. I assumed I would be done far before him. Printing the last section of the worship folder was the last item on my agenda, as it was my most mindless task. Great choice when I was hanging out with Murphy, right?

Before I knew it, the printer was spitting out blank sheets and looked like this:

The ink is supposed to go on the paper, and that tissue paper stuff is supposed to stay inside.

After a frantic attempt at fixing it, I had to call our office manager, who graciously traveled to church to fix it, even though she was already in her pajamas. At 9:30 pm, Nate and I pulled into the garage, glad to be home in one piece and thankful we were still laughing.

13-hour work days are not typical for me. Having everything go wrong is not usual. And yet facing opposition while doing ministry is absolutely ordinary. Using adversity to bond with friends is normal. Finding that good triumphs over evil, even when it's just an evil printer, is as common of a truth as I know.

We can be sure we will meet challenges in our dream chasing. Some may be physical aches from falls into trap doors. Some may be technical difficulties. Others may simply be delays. But if we are faithful in completing our work, we can fully trust Him to be faithful in completing His.

Murphy proved his point today: Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. The enemy does not seem to be a fan of this weekend. But none of this can stop Easter from coming, ladies and gentlemen! Let's remember His promises. Lean into Him as we press on, dreamers, and enjoy the front row view of God's great work!

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