Serendipity or Providence?

 ser-en-di-pi-ty: n. -- the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way

pro-vi-dence: n. -- the protective care of God or of nature as a supernatural power


One of my personal pet peeves is when Christians observe serendipity in their lives and equate it with providence -- as if it's a supernatural leading of God, or at least some indication of God’s will. To do so is not wrong in and of itself. [I would argue that the entire point of the story of Esther in the Bible is, essentially, this very thing. The reader is meant to draw the conclusion that Esther’s story is NOT simply a tale of happy chance, but is rather a remarkable example of God’s intervention in human events for the sake of preserving His people from extinction. Ironically enough, I conclude this even though the book never even once mentions God!] Nevertheless, this practice annoys me because of its imbalance compared to other things that the Bible clearly says ARE God’s will for us, like being sanctified (1 Thess. 4:3-7), being thankful in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18), submitting to civil authorities (1 Pet. 2:13-17), or suffering for doing good (1 Pet. 3:13-4:6), and others. 

But beyond this, I have a philosophical/theological problem with calling serendipity, "providence," because if we can claim that events of a happy chance are the supernatural will of God, then could we not also claim that events of an unhappy chance are also the supernatural will of God, simply on the basis of the events happening by chance? This is problematic for several reasons, primarily because Jesus Himself directly addresses this very thing on a couple different occasions. For example, Jesus explicitly says that God does not show favoritism with the weather; everyone gets rain sometimes, and everyone gets sunshine sometimes (Matt. 5:45). If it happens to rain on a day when I need it to rain, then by all means I should thank God for the rain, but Jesus’ words hold me back from concluding that the favorable weather is some sort of supernatural occurrence for my personal benefit. Or what might be worse, concluding that an unfavorable chance is somehow the work of God for my personal harm (or the harm of others), which Jesus addresses in Luke 13:1-5. There was a tower in the area of Jerusalem called Siloam that fell and killed 18 people, and Jesus asks a rhetorical question, “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?” Jesus goes on to say, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” I take it from these words that Jesus is gently rebuking his audience here, that if you conclude that unhappy chances are somehow the judgment of God (as I heard numerous people claim concerning Hurricane Katrina, as a modern example), then you are the one who needs to repent!

To boil it down, we cannot correctly credit “good” fortune to God’s specific supernatural action any more than “bad” fortune simply on the basis of it being “fortune.” God specifically says in Scripture that He doesn’t act that way. Yet, for all my ranting here, there are times in our lives when we experience serendipity and cannot escape the conclusion that it is God’s providence and not mere happenstance. The books of Esther and Ruth are perhaps the clearest examples of this very thing. This has not happened very often in my life, but there are a few specific incidents that genuinely seem this way to me.  

I’ve said all of this as an introduction to telling the story of buying our new vehicle, because the entire story of buying this car has felt so unexpectedly serendipitous that it has sometimes seemed providential. It’s a great story, and it needs to be told. But my conscience demands that I first discuss all of the above before expressing even a glimmer of a hint that it is somehow God’s supernatural will for us to own the vehicle we now own. God doesn’t work that way. We had good fortune to find an amazing bargain for a high quality vehicle, and the story of purchasing this vehicle is simply an awesome story because of the elements of serendipity contained within. So we offer thanks and praise to God, because to do so is both good and right, as the liturgy admonishes us.


And now, the story…

A few weeks ago, I was at my friend Matthew’s house to hang out and play some music. [He plays drums, so we often get together to jam!] Well, we were chatting about our upcoming move, and he asked me what we were going to do with our Honda Civic. I nonchalantly said that we were going to take it to South Africa with us when we moved. He then said, “You know, Joel, you can’t register that vehicle in South Africa, because it’s an import. They won’t register it. You’ll either have to keep it registered here in Swaziland, or sell it and get another car.” I said something like, “Whoa. No, I didn’t know that. I’m really glad you said something.” Well, there’s no way I was going to establish legal residence in South Africa while holding a United States drivers license and driving a Swaziland-registered car. That’s a recipe for disaster anywhere, but even more so in a place like South Africa where encounters with police can be wildly unpredictable. It didn’t take too long to come to the conclusion that we would simply need to sell our Swazi vehicle and get another one. 

This was disappointing to me, because we had paid cash for our Civic, and it’s nowhere near the end of its useful life. [My goal was to drive the Civet (that’s what we call the Honda, because we’ve taken it so many places that it probably shouldn’t be driven — but hey, this is Africa! If you’ve never heard of a civet, it’s a small, African mountain cat) until it died, because car repairs are almost always cheaper than new cars.] But Allison and I had been talking about possibly growing the family, in which case we would need a bigger vehicle anyway. Furthermore, a number of our friends have expressed interest in coming to visit us once we move to Stellenbosch, and we wanted to have room in our vehicle to carry passengers. So in the end, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad time to upgrade our vehicle anyway.

So I began searching for a vehicle in our price range with capacity for at least 6 passengers and less than 200,000 km “on the clock” (that’s what they say here). Specifically, I was hoping to find a Toyota, either a Condor or Avanza, which are medium-sized crossover vehicles that seat either 7 or 8, depending on the specific model. The selection was pretty slim, and there was nothing that really stood out as a terrific value. But there was another problem. As Allison and I continued talking about it, she communicated that she was really worried about driving a manual transmission, and (as far as I could tell) all those vehicles were manual transmission. She really preferred an automatic transmission vehicle if we could find it. So I adjusted the parameters on the Auto Trader search engine for automatic transmission, and it came back with 200+ vehicles in the whole country of South Africa. I began paging through them all. 

This was Monday evening of the week before last. There were some decent candidates, but they were all too far away to make the purchasing practical. Again, nothing was standing out until I saw a 2006 Volvo XC-90 2.5T 7-seater with 184,000 km (about 117,000 miles) which had had one owner and full service record for sale at a dealership in Johannesburg, about a 4 hour drive away. I immediately picked up the phone and called the salesman, even though it was after hours. He answered and told me that the car was still available. I told him that I was interested and would call him back at 8am sharp to discuss the vehicle.

In the meantime, I began researching. Having rebuilt the engine of a Volvo sedan I previously owned, I knew without a doubt that the high mileage would not be a major concern. If taken care of properly, Volvo engines run cleanly for a long time. Their safety record is impeccable, and their cars are both well-designed and well-built. I carefully read all the online review sites I could find on that particular year and model, and while some reviews were mixed, most all commenters were very bullish on the ’06 XC-90 2.5T and included no major mechanical complaints. Normally, we would be priced out of that vehicle, but this particular dealership was trying to get their stock off the lot and was having a massive sale. This particular car was priced in the same range as the Toyotas I was looking at earlier, low enough that we could pay cash for it and not have to finance it. Allison and I talked about it at length that evening, and we decided that if I felt good talking to the salesman about it on the phone, then I would travel to Joburg the next day to look at it and buy it.

Now it just so happened ... that my friend Matthew had just started a new job and needed to drive to Joburg the following day for corporate training to last the remainder of the week. So I called him up and asked if I might be able to catch a ride with him in the morning. He said yes, of course. I phoned the salesman in the morning, and he gave me the whole rundown. It had been previously owned by an employee of the dealership and had blown a gasket, so he traded it in. The dealership had the engine rebuilt and was selling the vehicle nearly at cost because of the amount of cars that they simply needed to get sold. Also, there was a 1-year warranty on the major mechanical engine components following the rebuild. I told him that I was coming to look at it that day and would probably buy it if I liked what I saw.

Within an hour my friend Matthew picked me up, and we had a fantastic drive, just enjoying each other’s company and chatting about everything that 30-somethings men talk about (you know, mostly telling stories of dumb things we did when we were younger). Truthfully, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend a 4-hour commute. The dealership was only a few miles from where he needed to go, so he even dropped me off! I met up with the salesman, and we went out to look at the Volvo. I told him that I wanted to inspect the car thoroughly, and he said that he had to talk to his manager about something anyway, so he let me have at it. I dug my penlight out of my bag, got down on the ground, and started looking over every inch of the undercarriage, starting at the front left corner and working my way around the car counterclockwise. Everything was clean and tight, no body damage, the interior was immaculate, even the tread on the tires looked fairly new. As I came around to the front right corner, I saw some fluid on the bottom side of the plastic shield guarding the engine. I dabbed it with my finger. Motor oil. The salesman came back then, and I told him that I’d found an oil leak. We opened the hood, and I could see oil on the right side motor mounts as well, but it was impossible to tell where it was coming from.

I went inside to meet the sales manager and have a chat with him about it. I told him I thought I wanted to buy the vehicle, but that I wanted the oil leak fixed first. He answered that he would have to send the car back to the mechanic who rebuilt the engine, and I was free to go along if I wanted. So the salesman and I hopped in and drove it down to the shop of a very pleasant mechanic named Willie (pronounced “vee-lee”). He and his assistants ran the car up on the lift and started removing guards and covers in an attempt to find the leak. I watched them work for about 15 minutes or so, then Willie decided that there was a good many more parts he would have to remove to find the leak. He said he needed three days to be able to take it down enough to find the leak, fix it, and then test it to ensure that the leak was fixed. I phoned Allison to give her the rundown, and we decided that we would wait the three days for them to fix the leak, and then buy it. So I returned to the sales manager and paid a small deposit for him to hold the car for me, then the salesman dropped me off at my friend Matthew’s hotel.

By this time it was nearly 5pm, much too late for me to catch the bus back to Swaziland, so I needed to stay overnight somewhere. I didn’t want to pay to stay in the ritzy hotel where Matthew was staying, but I remembered a place where I had stayed last year when I came to Joburg to take the GRE exam. It was a backpackers place that rented cabins for less than $20/night. I met up with Matthew and phoned from his room in the hotel. They had space for me! So Matthew and I hopped in his car, and off we went, GPS in hand.

Now Barefoot Backpackers is on Pretorius Rd. in a suburb of Joburg called Midrand. The problem is that there are three different streets in Midrand called Pretorius Rd. [No lie.] It was raining. And it was rush hour. In Joburg. I don’t know how long us it took us to get to Barefoot Backpackers, but it was much longer than it should have been. And we had great fun the whole time. We eventually got there, I checked in, then we drove off in search of victuals. We found a Debonair’s Pizza that was still open, and had a really meaningful chat while eating dinner. All in all, that day turned out to be the most “just pure fun” I’ve had in quite a while. From my cabin later that night, I sent an email to another friend in the States, telling him that the whole day had come so out-of-the-blue that it felt almost providential. The next morning I took the commuter train to the bus station and hopped the bus back to Swaziland.

 Now, it just so happened ... that another one of my friends here, an expat from Sweden named Matz, was flying in from Nepal and headed back to Swaziland on the same bus! So on the 4 hour ride back, Matz and visited for a good long while and had a great time catching up (I hadn’t seen him since coming back from the States).

[Here, an interlude. In the days while I was waiting for the oil lead to be fixed, I had some restless evenings. It’s hard for me to spend a bunch of cash all in one shot anyway (well, it’s hard for me to spend, period), but it’s tougher to spend money on a vehicle (much less a Volvo!) when there are so many physical needs around us. In a way, this emotional reaction is a healthy one. The presence of poverty in our lives and experience rightly prompts us to examine our consciences, especially in regard to decisions with what we do with money. And this is true regardless of where in the world you live. But there is a flip side to this coin as well. The reality of the world is that there is very little that I can physically do to alleviate suffering from the poverty around me. I know, that doesn’t sound like a very pious thing to say; but I think it’s an important reality to accept for someone to be effective in the kind of environment in which we live. There is not just a practical reason for this (burn-out), but also a theological reason. I don’t save people, Jesus saves people. But as I was weighing all these things in my mind, another thought that came in which I think accords with the truth… 

I can’t fix all the money problems in Swaziland, but I can pray and ask God to fix them, and I should do that. And actually, I do do that already. But the lesson for me was deeper than that, I think. The lesson is, when I feel guilty about my position of wealth, the best immediate response is to pray to God. Buying the Volvo is a good use of money: the vehicle will meet our needs for the foreseeable future; it’s a quality vehicle that should last; and we’re not spending any more than we would if we bought a Toyota. And we are actively involved in meeting the physical needs of people around us to the extent that is realistic and (as far as we can tell) mutually beneficial, and even on some occasions, personally sacrificial. I have no reason to feel guilty, and I have every reason to pray. Praying places one’s trust in God, not self. Praying is an action in line with God’s character as the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent Creator of the universe. I can pray for the person I give money to on the street. I can pray for the gogo (i.e. grandmother, or old woman) I pass by whose skin is sun-hardened, her spine permanently bent from labor, her face etched with the creases of life. I can pray for the children I meet in passing. You get the point here; it’s a good lesson.]

Well, it turns out that when the engine was rebuilt some exterior bolts hadn’t been torqued quite up to specs. The mechanic tightened the bolts, cleaned the engine off, and let the thing idle for a day to make sure that the leak was stopped. The following Monday, I got back on the bus to Joburg to test-drive the Volvo. It ran like a dream, and there was no sign of oil anywhere upon returning to the dealership. 

As we were walking around finalizing everything that needed to be done to complete the sale, I walked across the new car showroom and happened to glance up and saw this:

Now, it just so happens ... that this is Charm City, USA -- yep, good ol’ Baltimore. Looking north on Light Street from downtown Inner Harbor, to be exact. I instinctively said, “Hey Alecs!” — that was the salesman’s name — “see that? That’s Baltimore, the city I used to live in. I’ve driven on that very street! Crazy! I’m gonna take a photo!” He said something like, “Yeah man, that is crazy!” Obviously, I was more enthused about it than he was, but he appreciated the moment, too.  

Serendipity?  Providence?  Either way, it’s a great story.

An hour later, I was driving home in our new used Volvo. Thanks be to God!