By John A. Huffman Jr.
Pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, CA
John 10:10b
"I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."
I have a golfing buddy who loves to make this statement: "Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans!"
In a way, it is true, isn't it? Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. This was driven home most emphatically to me when I was at a Gordon-Conwell Seminary board meeting approximately 10 years ago, seated in the student cafeteria, having lunch with Joanna Mockler, one of my fellow trustees. Joanna's husband was Coleman Mockler, the CEO of Gillette. She told me how Coleman was about ready to take early retirement as soon as he could complete the introduction of the new "Sensor" blade, which was to be launched with an advertising campaign in that season's Super Bowl. Then the two of them were going to enjoy life together, traveling the world and spending quality time with family and friends. He would be on some boards, such as the Harvard University Board of Overseers, and she on boards such as Gordon-Conwell Seminary. We then were joined by students who shared the rest of the luncheon time with us.
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Just before the board meeting was to reconvene, Joanna excused herself to go to the ladies room, saying, "I'll see you back in the board meeting in a few minutes, John."
On the way to the restroom, she was abruptly stopped by a seminary official who had just gotten word that her husband, Coleman Mockler, a few minutes before (while we were talking about their future life of retirement together), had suffered a massive heart attack in his executive suite at Gillette headquarters. She was rushed from the board meeting on Boston's North Shore down to Gillette headquarters to the side of her dying husband.
Joanna Mockler discovered, in the most abrupt way possible, the truth of that statement, "Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans." One minute, she was animatedly talking future plans with Coleman. A few minutes later, she was a grieving widow.
As a management-by-objective kind of guy, even before the phrase was invented, I set goals and had objectives for my life, only to discover how life does take crazy bounces.
As a teenager, I looked forward to graduating from Junior High West in Arlington, Massachusetts, to attend Arlington High School. Suddenly, my Dad accepted a call to a new ministry, which meant leaving the church he had served for 14 years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and moving to the Chicago area. There went my plans. I never saw my childhood neighborhood friends again.
During high school and college, I prayerfully planned a career in politics, making all the right moves, running for the right offices, even serving as the precinct chairman of the political party of my choice during the Nixon/Kennedy presidential election of 1960. Then, in graduate school at Princeton, God clearly led me away from politics into the ministry. There went my plans.