God-Encounters in Ordinary Days
Coincidence or a God-encounter? My friend Barbara, a long time Christian, believes God arranges our personal encounters when we specifically ask Him. She told me about one incident she calls her “two-minute” miracle encounter.
She had signed up to attend a conference in North Carolina related to her work. She said: “Because I did not know anyone who would attend, I prayed earnestly that God would order everything down to the smallest detail during that week– every contact, every conversation, every point of communication– according to His divine purpose. Then I went to the conference.”
“On the way to the auditorium one day I met a woman named Dot on the sidewalk. Briefly we exchanged names, addresses, and other information. I added Dot’s name to our ministry’s monthly prayergram.”
Five years later Barbara received a surprise phone call from Dot inviting her to come teach a large retreat in her state. While there, Barbara discovered another unique piece to her miracle puzzle. Dot had attended the North Carolina conference five years earlier because a friend of hers felt God wanted her to sell a rug to pay for Dot’s registration.
“How awesome are the ways of God,” says Barbara. “If that one woman had failed to hear and obey, Dot would never have attended the conference. If my own heart had not been stirred to ask God to order every contact, I might have missed a two-minute conversation that resulted in a phone call five years later to go teach many women.”
Barbara would have missed out also on a friendship with Dot that continued years later, as well as other speaking invitations she received as a result of that retreat.
“Imagine, all along God knew,” Barbara concludes. “He kept track! He fulfilled His holy purpose. An appointed time, appointed place, person, and ministry, all of which evolved around a two-minute encounter. When we are yielded to God, trusting Him to ‘redeem the time’ in our lives. that grace carries awesome, long-term potential. God not only gave me the two minutes, He watched over it until the season for its fullness.”
That, I think, is that essence of her divine appointment – God’s season for fulfillment. How hard it is not to get impatient when things don’t go our way, in our timing. But God knows the how and why of each little detail of our lives.
That includes our everyday goings and comings. We can be led by Him then too—even in small but important ways. Just ask my friend Louise.
One day Louise woke up “burdened” to make a pot of stew and take it around the corner to a certain neighbor, even though she hadn’t been in contact with the neighbor in a long time.
“Somehow I was impressed to cook it,” Louise remembers, “then to deliver it at an exact moment. When I arrived, I discovered my neighbor was just being brought home from the hospital and needed a hot, cooked meal.”
These nudging’s from God are His way of speaking to us to bless others. How many times we miss them! Louise puts it well: “God’s ways are simple. I discover him in the ordinary of my life.”
Have you too discovered Him in the ordinary of your life? Let’s be listening. Be alert. Answer that nudge from Him. Sometimes He will use us to answer the prayers of others. Other times God speaks His love when He answers our prayers– even those we may think are insignificant or too small to bother Him with.
What others call “a chance encounter” may really be “a divine setup.” Let’s stay sensitive to His guidance!
Prayer: Father, thank You for answering prayers. Help us to be willing to wait until Your timing is right. May we stay sensitive to ways You may want to use us to bless others. I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Scripture: Therefore consider carefully how you listen…(Luke 8:18a NIV)
Quote: “Christ wants our minds to think His thoughts, our emotions to express His love and our wills to choose to allow His will to be performed in and through us. This happens as we cultivate our relationship with Christ.” 1 Dr. Fuchsia Pickett
Footnote: 1. Fuchsia Pickett, Receiving Divine Revelation (Lake Mary, Fla: Creation House, Strang Communications, 1997), 15.
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