Say What?

I think we gravely underestimate God using us to impact others.

Just think about it:  You have a serious thing on your mind, a problem to solve or maybe a problem that doesn’t have a solution at all and you’re trying to come up with one anyway. 

Let’s say that, in this frame of mind, you go to Wal-Mart, the great gathering place of the masses.  While you are shopping sort of on auto-pilot, your mind is also thinking about “the problem,” which has now grown to the point that it has quotation marks around it. 

As you are looking at the birthday cards trying to find something cheerful to send while you yourself are in turmoil, you overhear two women walking by.  As one of them is talking to the other, she says something that absolutely zeros in on what’s on your mind.  And it’s a comfort to you or it’s a revelation to you or it’s something that is absolutely profound and speaks to you in such a personal way that you are awestruck.

That woman, who wasn’t speaking to you at all, was sent for you to hear what she said.  Don’t try to convince me that all this was sheer coincidence.  What God does is called coincidence a lot.  Now I am hearing more and more people calling it a God-thing.  I like that.  It gets God into the conversation.

How else would that woman in Wal-Mart been able to say to somebody else what was perfect for you?  And the woman may not have even wanted to go to Wal-Mart that day, but she went anyway, not really knowing why she went on that particular day, at that particular time.  Think of all the things that had to line up for her to speak what God wanted you to hear at just the right moment. 

And until you heard it, you were not aware that you were even listening to anything that was going on around you.

God loves you so much.  But the sad part is that when this happens, God is not given the credit.  If we are aware at all that it was something outside of ourselves that triggered the voice of God, we are just floored that such a thing could happen. 

We are floored but we do not give God the credit.  We say, “That was incredible!  Just think, that woman was right there when I needed to hear that.”  Close, but no cigar.  We’ve got to put God into it.  He’s already there.  We have to deliberately watch for him.
A few years ago, my husband bought an SUV, a white Nissan X-terra.  I really don’t know much about cars and their models and all of that.  I might know that you drive a red car, but I probably can’t even remember that much. 
I had never seen an X-terra before David bought his. What a big thing it is!  I have to climb up on the running board to get into it.  We had never had such a big, or maybe the word is tall, vehicle.  I thought it quite unique.

Until I started seeing white Nissan X-terra’s all over town.  There’s a bazillion of them! 

It wasn’t that I had never seen one before, it was I had never noticed them before. 

Thankfully, my husband had stripes put on the sides to match the stripes on our camper, otherwise I would have probably had a wreck trying to see the driver of every white X-Terra around.

When we start paying attention, we will see more and more ways that God is right in front of us every second of the day.  We just have to become more aware.

Pray more, study more, want it more!  And then want it more, and study more, and pray more.

It’s priceless, you know.

And the bonus is that while you are looking for God around you, He will become more and more evident in the lives of those around you.  And you will become more aware of God using you.

And there is nothing better than that.

If a stranger can say just the right thing at just the right time for you, isn’t it just as likely that you have done the same for a stranger? 

There are no strangers in God’s eyes, only His children who need a little (or sometimes a lot) of help along the way.