Finding Faith ... in a lost planner

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 2.5 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and the deepening of my theological mind. This sermon originally took place on Oct. 13, 2019.

I’d like to start today with another quiz. … And remember, there are no correct answers.

How many of you have ever lost something that has just about driven you out of your mind?

And how many here today, just like me, like control?

I mean, you wake up in the morning with a to-do list, and you attack the day. ... You are a force! And if anything gets in the way of your plan, you are just besides yourself. … How many of you like that are here today?

It’s OK, raise your hands proudly! You are not alone my people!

Well, this is a story about both of these things, losing things that are dear to us and coming to terms with the fact that we are most certainly not in control.

So, for all of you who are afflicted like me, I have a couple of bonus scriptures today.

First, from Romans 8:28: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

And from Philippians 4:6: “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

We’ll come back to those in a moment.

I am asked quite often: How do you keep it all together? I mean you’ve got work, and church and school, and, oh yeah, you’re a dad and a husband. … Just how do you do it all?

Well, I always begin that I have an incredibly understanding wife, who believes in this call. And kids who accept that we are trying to achieve something greater than just pay the bills and have nice things. … Well, most of the time.

And, then I always share with the questioner that I plan my days very, very meticulously. ... I use a lot of digital tools that help increase my productivity; I write everything down so that I don’t rely on memory; and I keep a very detailed paper calendar that tracks everything.

Many of you have probably even seen the purple planner that I use because I took it everywhere with me.

Oh, I loved that thing. It was the very intersection of all the parts of my life. Sure, it was a calendar. … But also in there were notes from sermons that I had started working out on paper. ... There were business notes from the many meetings I attend for work. ... There was a completed church and school and work calendar through the end of the year.

There were notes from the two Luther intensive classes I took this year in January and June. … Really good theological stuff I know that I would have used in the future.

There were drawings in there. Now, I’m not much of an artist, but everyone once in a while, I do some sketching. And earlier this year, I went through a phase in which I sketched a lot during meetings or class. And there was one particular sketch of a cartoon bee that I had made for Shelley because she loves bees!

Oh, I loved that planner. … I know it’s silly to say, but I did. It represented to me all of the blood, sweat and tears that I have poured into my family and my job and the church and school this past year. … It was a physical manifestation of all I had accomplished.

And now notice that I have been speaking about the planner in … the past tense.

Would you like to try a little psychological experiment? … Try removing Devlyn’s planner from his life and see what it does to his psyche!

Well, a week ago this past Friday, I was in a hotel lobby bar in Milwaukee, meeting with some clients to which I’m trying to sell The Forum’s services. … I had been working with the couple sitting with me for a couple of months, and they were close to signing a contract.

The meeting was progressing well, we had just gotten through all of the pleasantries, and we were just at the crux of the meeting, the point where we were going to talk about signing a contract. … When I look across the table, and the man’s face is going white, and he is grabbing at his chest and throat, the universal choking sign.

Then, his wife sees the frightful look on my face and turns to her husband, and then her face goes white as well.

Both of us began to urgently asking him if he could breathe, and he can only communicate with shakes and nods of his head. … A frightening moment.

The good news is that eventually he felt better; he began to breathe; and the color returned to his face.

But, as you can imagine, our business meeting was effectively done. The husband and wife dismissed themselves so that he could return to their room to rest.

The next day, I drove from Milwaukee to Chicago for another convention, and I was standing at the desk of the J.W. Marriott in downtown Chicago, when the clerk asked for my confirmation number.

I went to pull out the purple planner from my work backpack to get the information. … And you guessed it … it was gone!

My mind worked frantically, and after I had mentally traced my steps backward, I could visualize my purple planner sitting on the table in the Milwaukee hotel lobby.

In all of the confusion of that frightening moment, I had forgotten my planner on the bar table.

I quickly whipped out my phone and called the hotel, thinking, “Surely, someone picked it up and returned it. I mean, who would keep someone else’s planner? What good would it be to them?”

But no luck. No one had turned it in. … It was gone.

I wish I could share with you the mental anguish I felt. … This inexplicable feeling that my life had just come unmoored.

The staff member on the phone gave me a glimmer of hope. “You know, we are a big hotel and sometimes lost items take a few days to work through all the correct channels.”

So, I called back on Sunday … And Monday … And, yes, on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, I was processing these strange feelings. This sense of mourning for this thing that was nothing more than paper, cardboard and a little leather.

Even more strangely, I was angry that someone may have taken my planner.

Or worse yet, I was angry that someone maybe just threw it away. … Poof, 10 months of my hard work just thrown in the trash.

How could someone do such a dastardly thing? … Didn’t they know the significance that that planner had in my life?

Didn’t they know how much control that little 4-by-6 inch book gave my life?

I wrestled with all of these thoughts last week. And Wednesday made it worse because I had the 10-hour drive back from Chicago. … And what else are you going to do with 10 hours of windshield time if not worry, right?

So, there I was, a good 7 hours into my trip home, fretting over this silly, little planner. ... Griping over the illusion of security that this stupid little book had given me. … When I received the call from my brother, Dan. … “Dev, the cancer is back.” … And all of us adults know what those code words mean.

With one phone call, my brother didn’t just pop my silly little notion of being able to control things. … He obliterated the notion. … And rightly so.

Here, I had just spent the better part of four days obsessing over this silly collection of bound paper that I had made an idol in my life.

And my brother … the brother that just a few months ago, after an arduous surgery, received a report that he was cancer free. … The same brother, who just a short year and a half ago was as healthy as any of us sitting here today.

While I was fretting over a silly book, my brother was receiving crushing, life-altering news.

So, this last four days, I’ve been forced to readjust my mindset. … Worry less, pray more, I have reminded myself.

And I have been reminded that I am not in control now. … Nor was I in control when I possessed my precious purple planner. … The fact is that none of us are in control.

Yes, to ensure that we have an orderly life, and that kids get to school, and bills get paid on time, and that we don’t miss the important events in our life, it is absolutely necessary for us to have plans.

But, ultimately, what I have been so painfully reminded this week is that we have to give up this notion that we somehow have control over anything.

Folks, we no longer live in Eden. ... And there are forces in this world beyond our control that will wreak havoc in our lives. … And in our loved ones’ lives.

There is greed and accidents and human failings that hurt us. And there are diseases such as that most vile of diseases, cancer.

There are inexplicable tragedies that rip away real things from us. … Things far more important than just paper planners.

But before we let despair get a grip on us, we have to remember Romans 8:28: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

And we must remember Philippians 4:6: “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

I can’t stand here today and tell you what good will come from my brother’s renewed cancer fight. … I don’t even want to think about, to be honest.

But, I do know what good came of this past week’s lesson of me losing my precious planner. … It was a healthy reminder to me, that despite our best efforts, we control little in this world. … But we do have a loving and dependable God to whom we can turn when all else seems to be chaos.

A God who promises us that he is big enough to hold in his hands all of us, and all of our concerns, and even all of the injustices in this world, including loved ones stricken with cancer.

I am not going to lie: I still want my purple planner back. I want to receive a miraculous phone call from the Pfister Hotel, with someone on the other end asking, “What’s your address, Mr. Brooks? We have found your planner.” …

But, you know what I want more? … I want for my brother to receive a phone call from his oncologist who says, “I’m sorry Mr. Brooks, there seems to have been a terrible mistake. Your results are clean. Please continue with your recovery.”

I want both phone calls to happen because they would then allow me to restore my life back to just before each incident happened and allow me to hang onto this silly notion of control.

But, something tells me that neither is going to happen. … So I will do the only things I know what to do: And that is, first, to turn to Romans 8:28 and Philippians 4:6.

And second, I will try my best to use God’s lesson to give up on my illusion of control, and learn to trust that He is working good through both my brother’s diagnose and even my silly lost planner, even if I don’t see it yet.

And that is the Good News this Sunday. … Amen.