Not the Nail

When I was little my parents told me a story about a man who was fixing his roof. He climbed up to the apex of his roof and began patching a hole. It was hard work and as he began to get tired he got a little careless. Suddenly he lost his balance and began to tumble down the roof! The man's first instinct was to pray, begging his Heavenly Father to save his life. Suddenly, in mid-prayer his pants caught on a nail and he stopped falling! Relieved he prayed, "Never-mind God, this nail saved me."

This story has stuck with me for a long time. Maybe Bryce got a good score on the GRE with his own great brain; maybe I found a great job during a recession without any help; maybe our car started because a random connection dried out by chance, just as we finished our prayer; Maybe my own lesson planning made my Sunday School lesson a success; maybe it was luck that we happened upon a couple whose car was stuck in the snow; maybe we were never exposed to Swine Flu when we had no health insurance; maybe it was the nail, but I don't believe it.