Sometimes the most unpredictable circumstances make me look cool (the end all in life?). Last week, I showed up for Sunday evening service, and we hung greens instead—-and I produced, from my trunk, a stapler and a roll of duct tape. Bryan was impressed—but it really was pretty expected: I’ve been working on stuff, so I’ve been storing tools in my trunk. These items were just the beginning. But, that set the stage pretty nicely for tonight.
For some reason, instead of setting up coffee, Bryan brought cider this evening—and when I got up to where we meet, he had carried a microwave and table up there to heat up the cider. “Would this be better with some brown sugar and cinnamon?” I ask. Yeah do you have some? “In my car” I run out and return with a bag of sugar and cinnamon—with a hint of clove. See, I collect sand samples for somebody in this group, and I had a bag of sand from a recent trip. So, I thought to myself, What if I gave her a bag of brown sugar? Would she notice? So, I got some brown sugar, put it in a clean ziplock and then added cinnamon and cloves. I was going to put in some hot cocoa powder, but it didn’t look like it would add the right colors to make it look like dirt. Turns out, I’d forgotten that soil collector wasn’t going to be there tonight,,,,but it also turned out we had a use for the fake dirt. The funny thing is, it made me look like I had a magic car—and it wasn’t because I’d thought ahead or anything.
What if your entire life was like that? Whenever you did something, it would turn out that it was the best thing that you could have done. Hopefully you wouldn’t just use it to make yourself look awesome, but unlike me, you would use it to bring glory to God, who is the one who sets everything up for us. Sometimes it seems my life is being run for me by God, and it really is a good feeling to know that what happened was totally not my doing, but God’s and it turned out better than I could have managed. Like that time that I wanted a webcam, and then one showed up in the dumpster behind Quad 3 soon afterwards. It made me feel warm inside to think that God was looking out for my needs and wants. Or that time I quit my job on a Friday, drove to MO because I didn’t have anywhere to live anymore…and Monday I had another job, that paid twice as much—but didn’t start for a month. A month that I needed for family stuff.
God often operates with miracles that are “little”, just nudges of the probability distribution so that the “right” thing happens. Not like He’s not “allowed” to operate outside of the natural order, but sometimes He makes it almost fit into the explainable. And if we aren’t watching for it, or talking to Him about it, we might miss it altogether. And it won’t always be something that makes me look cool, but in the end, it will be better. I think there is a verse about it somewhere: God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
So, keep your eyes peeled for God at work—even if it’s something as “small” as knowing the correct kind word for the situation, or turning a surreal shenanigan into a delicious drink.
