A Slurpee and a Saved Life

I want to share a passage from the beginning of the 23rd Psalm and apply it to how Christ, our
Shepherd leads us and will position us in situations where He can work His will and receive glory.
(1b) The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.
3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake.

Jesus referred to Himself as the "Good Shepherd."  He also taught that His sheep - that's you and me - hear His voice.  We can develop a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and know where He is leading us. And, we can know that God, sometimes in partnership with His angels, can direct us into situations that He has orchestrated to use us in profound ways.  We have to be willing to listen to Him and train ourselves to be discerning as He leads.

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We are children of God, and we have been given a Helper, a Comforter, a Counselor - the Holy Spirit.  Those are some of the descriptive words in the Amplified translation, in John 14:26.  Romans 

8 says:

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 

15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." 

16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God...

We can know that the Spirit of God walks with us and that the Scriptures say He guides us "into all truth."  He is moving throughout the earth, and perhaps you can look back and see ways in which His hand has moved, how He has orchestrated events through which He can receive glory.  I believe that there will be times in which He will strategically place us in a position where He meets us and His hand is so evident, so that we might recognize His love and faithfulness.

Christiana Corrado is a woman from New York who had a desire for something she hadn't tasted in three years - a 7-11 Slurpee!!   According to a piece on The Stream website, she told CBS2 television: “So it’s pretty strange to me that all of a sudden on this day at that moment I would decide to go to that particular 7-Eleven to obtain one..."

The Stream story continues:

She was about a block away from the 7-Eleven when she noticed a car out of control and the driver slumped over. “The car goes right by my passenger window and I’m following it and I said, ‘Oh no, that’s not good.’”

The car hit a utility pole, which started a fire, then rolled down a hill and hit a CVS store.

Corrado is described as a "paramedic and EMS instructor." She U-turned, went to the scene, and found a man who had no pulse and had turned blue. The article says:

She immediately began CPR on the man. “Hard, fast, and he went from blue to pale to pink, his eyes started to move, then his eyes opened and he actually started to talk and asked what is going on,” Corrado said.

The article also states:

Corrado had been thinking that the day was a waste. After the accident, she realized it wasn’t. “You know what, your day wasn’t a waste,” she said. “Look at that. Never know what God has in plan for you.”

A CVS customer had remarked, "It's God's hand in our lives..."

Some takeaways for us today:  First, I believe that God will manifest His will through desires or urges that we may encounter.  We can develop a sensitivity to those.  There may be a prompting, what has been described as a "still, small voice," a leading to do or say something that could have a transformative effect in a situation.  Part of the faith walk is to learn to recognize those leadings.

We recognize that God is at work all around us, and He will occasionally, perhaps regularly choose to use us for His glory.  We can be ready and willing to identify and respond to needs around us.  If we are motivated by the compassion of Christ, we have the potential to find ourselves responding to people who need to see the presence of Jesus, expressed through His people.

Finally, we can ascertain how God is positioning us for service according to His plan.  We can find Him orchestrating events - and that could also include angelic involvement; unseen forces that working in partnership with the Lord to bring about an amazing manifestation of His will.  It is a blessing to think about how a mighty God wants to work through His people to testify to His presence!