Divine Appointments
I love to hear stories missionaries tell of amazing divine appointments and being amazed at how God works on the mission field. I long to see God work in miraculous ways here, too, maybe a little like in Acts 8 when the angel of the Lord told Philip to “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” Philip went and encountered an important Ethiopian court official who was sitting in his chariot reading from the prophet Isaiah. The Spirit told Philip to go over and join the chariot. Philip meandered over and asked the Ethiopian if he understood what he was reading. The Ethiopian (wouldn’t you love to know his name?) said he needed someone to guide him, and he invited Philip into the chariot. He “just happened” to be reading a significant gospel-saturated passage and wanted to know the meaning. Talk about an opening! Philip explained the passage and then told him the good news of the gospel. The Ethiopian believed, there “just happened” to be some water, and the Ethiopian asked to be baptized. Poof! Just like that!
Perhaps even missionaries eagerly pray for such divine encounters, and sometimes it happens that way! More often than not, though, I suspect there is much counsel and teaching and prayer along the way—many divine encounters we never have eyes to see.
This morning here in Colorado started as a regular day after yesterday’s storm that brought us rain, brought Pikes Peak lots of snow, and made the mountain views even more glorious. At the YMCA gym, partway through my short cardio on the treadmill, I realized that I’ve been trying to drink more water and that it would be wiser to take a quick break in the “powder room.” As I hastily set my water bottle on the counter, a young woman fixing her hair greeted me with an especially cheery “Good morning.” We ended up in one of those conversations where after five or ten minutes you know more about someone who was a total stranger than you do about many of the people you interact with regularly. Without going into detail, I learned that she has worked at this gym for 17 years. She is a believer and has some things to celebrate right now and some things about which she has much concern. After our encouraging visit, I was all set to dash off with a “Well, have a great day! I’ll be praying for you!” But something inside me just couldn’t do it, so I asked if I could pray for her. I gave thanks for the celebration before her and prayed for her concerns—nothing long and certainly not eloquent. Encouraged, she thanked me; I was deeply encouraged, as well. In passing, she said she would be speaking to about 90 people later in the day about her work at the Y and wanted to share about our encounter. If not for her work there, she said, she wouldn’t have had someone pray for her this morning. So, here’s a list of what God did with a ordinary-life encounter where no one did anything extraordinary—except God.
He sent me to where she was and put in her heart to greet me in an engaging way.
He encouraged me, after seeing God work through ordinary circumstances, to be encouraged by her faith, and to be challenged to take more opportunities in the future to pray with someone in the moment rather than putting them on a vague prayer list.
He encouraged her through my listening and my praying. Likely, I will not know exactly how he used me in her life. I don’t need to know.
She’ll tell 90 other people about HIS work in and through us, hopefully blessing them in some way.
While nobody was converted, the gospel was shared and extended in ways we need every day.
He brought to mind the awareness that he is always working through divine appointments. Even in this normal circumstance, God’s hand was clearly at work. In a way, every moment of our lives is a divine appointment, whether we see it in that light or not.
Perhaps today’s divine appointment started a couple of days ago in a Bible study where I was challenged by Paul’s prayer in Colossians 1:9-10. “And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
God works in divine appointments, both on the mission field and in our ordinary circumstances here. Please join with me in praying, as Paul did, for ourselves and for believers here and in lands across the sea, that God will grow and encourage us in his Word, that he will bring fruit to our labors, that he will work in and through us in all our divine encounters (both ordinary and extraordinary), and that he will encourage us with glimpses of this work, giving us eyes to see that he is always at work bringing about his purposes through us, his people.