God's Schedule

In the book of Philemon, we see that the apostle Paul offers a prayer for effective ministry.  We can
read:
4 I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers,
5 hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints,
6 that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.

As you may be aware, this book is about Paul's request that Philemon accept a runaway servant, Onesimus, whose life had been changed, urging him to restore and forgive him.  Essentially, Paul is encouraging the recipient of this letter to put his faith in action.  That's a simple admonition, and something we all can take to heart.  If we believe in Christ, and desire to serve Him, then we can allow God to work in our lives and respond in obedience to Him.  Sometimes that will be inconvenient, in our own estimation, yet it's important to recognize Him at work.

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God wants to work powerfully through our lives, and we can possess the readiness to share His truth. 1st Thessalonians 2 says:
10 You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe;
11 as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children,
12 that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
13 For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.

One of the certainties of life is that things will not always go our way - we will encounter detours along the way, and we can trust the Lord in the midst of them and consider His purpose, even though we might not see it.

Christian singer-songwriter Michael W. Smith had a moment of misdirection recently.  According to an article at The Stream, originally posted at Pure Flix Insider, Smitty was at the airport in Atlanta, where he was preparing to fly to South Africa.  His band was on their way there, but he was stopped at the gate.  The article says:

“I get to the airport in Atlanta and the lady behind the desk says … ‘I’m not putting you on the plane,’” the singer said in a recent YouTube video. “‘You don’t have an empty page in your passport.’”

Even though Smitty admitted that he didn't generally handle changes in plans well, he said, “I was so at peace about the whole thing,” adding, “I thought, ‘God, you must have somebody I’m supposed to meet.’ I sort of embraced it.”  In this instance, he sensed God at work, and considered the purpose of the Lord.

Michael contacted an Uber to take him to a nearby hotel.  Ruben the Uber driver began to tell him about his story - how his new wife was "not into Jesus," so Ruben decided that he would join her in that mindset.

The story continues:

Smith proceeded to tell Ruben about his own encounter with Jesus, and as the car pulled up to the singer’s hotel, Ruben was clearly moved.

“He says to me, ‘I’ve got 30 seconds left with you in this car. Would you explain to me what you mean by a radical encounter with Jesus?’” Smith said. “And I told him.”

Something clicked for Ruben, as he revealed that he had driven a pastor in his car just two days before the ride with Smith.

“There’s something going on,” the driver said, clearly recognizing the spiritual elements at play.

Of course, Smith recognized that the encounter with Ruben was the reason he had missed his flight - he told the Uber driver he would pray for him and he then straightened out the passport situation and made it to South Africa for ministry there.

So, we make our schedules and pursue our agendas, and there may be little margin in which we allow the Lord to work.  We can become frustrated when circumstances don't fall into place.  We can be challenged to perhaps recognize those interruptions or misdirections as evidence of the hand of God.

And, I think we can be sensitized to the needs of people around us.  It may be a customer service person, maybe even an Uber driver in a large city or to and from an airport.  We can be ready to have what have been termed "gospel conversations," sharing what God has done for humanity by sending His Son to die and relating what He has done for us individually.

Ruben, the Uber driver recognized, "There's something going on."  That can even be a challenge for us - to acknowledge that God is at work, that something deeper is actually occurring. We can identify those God-moments and realize that His presence is there with us.