I got the date wrong for the inaugural planning meet for this new Matthias Media blog.

It was my own silly fault. Tony had booked two successive Wednesdays in our diaries until all participants could confirm which of these dates was preferred (the latter, as it turned out). I forgot to remove the spare date one week earlier. Then when I got his reminder to see you ‘next Wednesday’, it was the old chestnut of whether next Wednesday means this Wednesday, or the one in the following week. I saw the date for this Wednesday and hopped in the car seven days early!

Anyway, there I was at Moore College after a 90-minute drive from Wollongong, wondering why no-one had turned up and getting that sinking feeling! Finally I checked the email from Tony on my laptop. He had been clear on the date: I was one week too early. A muttered word of self-disgust under the breath ... a three-hour round trip for nothing!!!

The strange thing was that I didn't feel worse. This was my first week back after three weeks' annual leave, so I should have felt like I needed every precious minute to clear my messages and get up-to-date on my ministry projects. I'm not a very reflective person, but at that moment, I realized how grateful I am to be a Calvinist. If I'd been an Arminian, all I'd be left with was my stupidity. As a Calvinist, I was still left with my stupidity, but I also knew God was in control. Totally. Despite my choices and mistakes. It was a relief to remember that.

I know the issues of sovereignty are more complex than this, but being a Calvinist was why I wasn't more annoyed at that point.

It's the hardworking farmer who deserves the first share of the crops (2 Tim 2:6). But success in ministry and true gospel growth does not depend on my frantic, hard work, but on God. And his plan to unite all things under Christ continued without me, even though I was lost on three wasted hours of bitumen for no apparent purpose.

Actually, it wasn't totally wasted: at the college bookshop, I managed to purchase a book I'd been wanting which was not otherwise available in Australia. It was their only copy and it could turn out to be one of the books of the year. (Look out for the review.) And I listened to one sermon while I drove in each direction: a senior colleague had given the CDs to me as good examples of evangelical preaching from outside my own local stable. It's always good to listen to God's word that way. And I also picked up a couple of worthwhile sermon illustrations to pinch.

And even though it wasn't really the main point of the passage the preacher was preaching, one of those sermons also warned that haste was the great enemy of spiritual growth. Ouch! I'll read my emails more slowly next time.

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