OUT TO PASTOR: It’s all in the script

Everybody is concerned about details in various aspects of life.

I like overseeing the details of my life to make sure I’m going in the right direction.

I’m not always going in the right direction, as you can imagine.

However, everybody’s idea of detail management is not always the same.

Like me, some people are interested in the overall details. Others, like The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, are concerned about all the details, and can’t go deep enough to manipulate the details as best they can.

If you walked into my wife’s craft room, you would see how important details are to her.

If you would then walk into my office, you would see how flimsy I regard the depths of details.

I don’t have to have everything in proper order to be happy with what I’m doing. My idea is, if I can’t find what I need, I probably don’t need it. And so, I go on with the project.

My wife and I enjoy watching movies together. We prefer recording the movie and watch it later, because we can skip through all those lousy commercials that are so annoying.

I know commercials are important for the media industry. I know television stations need commercials so they can provide the service that we enjoy. I understand all of that, yet I’m still not too fond of commercials.

I may not like commercials, but my wife takes commercials with a doomsday hatred. That's why I take great pleasure in recording a movie and watching it by skipping over the commercials.

When we’re watching a program or a movie, I just like watching something for its entertainment value.

But not so with my wife.

She knows every aspect of each character and knows who committed the crime from the very beginning, which baffles me.

Every once in a while, a character will do something and my wife will say, “Why in the world did they do that? Don’t they know better?”

Being the husband that I am, I cannot keep myself from responding to a query. I usually say something like, “Well, my dear, it’s in the script, and they read the script.”

She usually looks at me with one of “her looks,” and I usually regret saying what I just said.

I had to chuckle because there are some things in life that I have no control over. One thing I don’t have control over is sarcastically responding to something my wife says.

After all these years of marital bliss, I should have learned how to keep my mouth shut at certain times.

Yes, there are times to speak out, but more often than not, there are times to shut up. I’m still trying to learn the difference.

While watching a program, I enjoy the overall story, whereas my wife is more concerned about each detail of every character in that story. How she does it is beyond my guess machine. I like to follow the story stage by stage, whereas my wife asks a question at each stage of the story.

I must confess that some of the programs are a little amateurish regarding details. Some of the details aren’t in real harmony with what the story is all about. But, of course, that never bothers me because I know it’s in the script.

We watched one of our favorite programs this past week when something happened that I didn’t see coming, my wife said, “Why in the world would they do something like that? That is the most ridiculous thing that anybody could do.”

Then she turned her head and looked at me and very seriously said, “And don’t you dare tell me that it’s in the script.”

I couldn’t help but laugh for the rest of the program. Although she didn’t think it was too funny, I enjoyed that statement for the rest of the program.

Not too long ago, I did something, I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was something that drew my wife’s attention, who queried me by saying, “Why are you doing that?”

I knew she was serious, but is very hard for me to be serious at times like this.

I looked at her with a very thoughtful look on my face and said, “Well, my dear, it’s in my script.”

Although she did not think that was funny, I did, and for the rest of that day, I kept repeating, “It’s in my script.”

I heard her mumbling, “I wonder who wrote his script?”

Later on that day I was reminded of a verse of Scripture. “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).

God has already written the script of my life, and as I yield to him I begin to discover what that is. The greatest tragedy of human life is rebelling against God’s script for me.

Dr. James L. Snyder lives in Ocala, FL with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. Telephone 1-352-216-3025, e-mail jamessnyder51@gmail.com. Website is www.jamessnyderministries.com.