Grass and the Sovereignty of God

We serve an amazing God.
Yesterday, I woke to a phone call at 5:45 a.m. from Ross King. Ross was scheduled to be our worship leader for DiscipleNow this weekend. Due to some crazy traffic and sitting on the freeway without moving for an hour, he had missed his first flight. There were, however, a few open seats on the next flight, which would still have him here in plenty of time.
Some of you might know that three years back we planned to have Ross as our worship leader and that time his plane turned around about five minutes after take off and landed back where he had taken off due to mechanical problems. After all of the "airport hassles" he ended up not making it out here at all. God definitely used that situation in many ways (but that's a blog for another time).
I just couldn't help but smile when it all started happening again. It was almost as if the tape from three years ago had been pulled off the shelf, put in, and hit play.

To make a long story short... Ross did not make it again this year. He commented to me: "I think I've spent more time waiting in airports trying to come see you than all my other airport adventures put together..." (he didn't make it this year for lack of trying though - he left his house at 4:45 a.m. and waited for 11 hours in the airport before we realized it just wasn't going to happen again.)

However: God is sovereign over all things. That's comforting to know when everything about the schedule seems to be falling apart. I made a couple of phone calls, juggled the schedule around (remember the key mission trip word? Well now it's the key word for DiscipleNow too), and found our "Plan B Band."

They're on this morning. I'm about to head over to start getting the stage ready for our new band. As much as I'm sad that Ross isn't with us, I'm also excited about our new band. Ironically, the drummer is the same one who I called at the last minute three years ago, but this time it's the band he regularly plays with. Three years ago, he was a student signed up for DNow who was suddenly playing. It's sort of a full-circle thing I guess.

And, to add another layer of "bonus" to all this, I actually have grass growing in my back yard. The seedlings take "7-21 days to emerge" and it's been nine days. I was a bit concerned when planting the new backyard lawn last week that it might not work. I'm not a gardener and I've never planted a lawn before. Whether or not it will become a lush lawn or not is yet to be seen, but there is grass growing!

God is sovereign over all things. From the big things like plane schedules and the weather and Plan B Bands being available for the whole weekend to the little things. The seedlings in my backyard are definitely little, but they are there. As soon as the yard grows into an actual backyard, I'll have to have a barbecue! For those that live here in California, a "barbecue" doesn't mean that I'm grilling hamburgers. It means we're having barbecue!

So on to our day of Worship at DiscipleNow 2009! We worship a mighty God. One who is sovereign and is not surprised in the slightest at all when the details change.

"For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations."
- Psalm 100:5