I read an excerpt from a book called Kingdom Triangle by J.P. Moreland the other day. The excerpt was a true story about this guy doing mission work in a foreign country somewhere along the equator. He was there offering medical attention when a woman gave birth to a child and the woman died. Having no incubator to keep the baby warm during the cold nights, they had to depend on a hot water bottle. They only had one hot water bottle (how many of those do you need on the equator?), and it broke. To make a long story short, the man gathered some children from the local orphanage and they prayed for God to perform a miracle. They prayed specifically for a hot water bottle, and one little girl even prayed for a dolly for a sick girl among them. The very same day, a package arrives for the man. He gathered the children to help him open it. Inside the box was the typical items you would receive in a care package, and of course…..a hot water bottle and even a dolly. The package was mailed 5 months earlier from the man's church.
A good friend of mine and I were talking this weekend and he shared a story with me that happened to him last week. He was heading home from a long trip and had to drive quite a ways to get back. Normally he is an early riser and tries to get a jump on the driving that lies ahead, but not that day. He took his time getting up and ready and started on his trip a couple hours after he normally would have. The trip was a rough one due to weather conditions and he was going slower that he had hoped to. He pulled into a gas station to fuel up when he noticed a couple having trouble with their windshield wiper. They explained to my friend that the wiper was coming off of the windshield and due to the weather they could not clear off the snow and ice and it was to the point where they could no longer see the road. My friend had the same exact issue with an old Buick he owned before, so he goes into the gas station and buys some wrenches and fixes the wiper for the couple, who can now get home safely.
There can be a tendency to blow things like this off as coincidence. But a package shows up that is exactly what was prayed for. The package was shipped 5 months ago. It lands the same day the prayer was offered up. My friend just so happens to take his time for a change.
He experienced a wiper malfunction and learned how to fix it. He finds a couple in need of someone who has experience repairing a wiper malfunction.
Many would just say, "wow….what an unbelievable coincidence".
Now….there is a choice to make.
We can choose to chalk things like that up to coincidence.
Or
We can choose to believe God is not just some distant onlooker that doesn't interact with the very people that He created and loves. We can believe that He is actually with us, among us, and at work in us and all around us, and believe that He is orchestrating things like this to allow us to see how awesome He is.
I choose God.
