Divine Appointments

I went into the GNC that is close to my home this morning with the task of buying protein powder. As I walked through the door I was greeted by two very pleasant young women who helped me find the product I needed. As I was paying the bill the pearl cross I wear around my neck caught the cashier’s attention and she asked about it. Then she noticed the Ichthys, a fish-shaped emblem that lets people know you are a Christian that I wear with the cross on a gold chain, and I explained to the best of my ability what it stood for. We were having a lively and interesting conversation when it dawned on me that I should tell them about this blog that I write every day! They actually took out their phones and put it in the memory! I hope that they actually read and that somehow something I say will encourage them in a world where true encouragement is hard to come by! I thought that meeting those young ladies was a divine appointment I was happy I kept and then I remembered this post that I wrote in 2013 on that subject…Divine Appointments!

I walked into the emergency room, afraid of what I would see, but I had been called, so armed with the Word I straightened my shoulders and asked to see the young man who had called for me. He had run through a glass door and was seriously injured. This is an event I had not thought of in a long time, until today. His daughter, who was in the room as he was being put to sleep in preparation for surgery, recounted it to me. As he was being put into a state of sleep, that to me resembles death, he began telling the story of how I came to see him and pray for him, his life was changed in that emergency room that night, then he began to sing “Precious Lord, take my hand” and succumbed to the anesthesia. It would have been easy the night that I was called upon to say I had a small child and couldn’t come out so late, to just say I would pray for him. Yes I could easily have done that, but I am so glad that I went because it was a divine encounter and a soul was saved that night.

When Jesus walked on this earth with His band of men, He did not have a grand church with an oak pulpit nor even a tent, complete with sawdust and fans from a funeral home, He just walked from place to place and ministered to those people who crossed His path or would call out “Rabbi, heal me!” There were times He spat on the earth and put the mud on someone’s eyes, or told them to pick up their bed and walk, He offered living water to a woman who no decent man would be seen talking with alone and protected another such woman who was caught in adultery by stooping and writing on the ground words that people have speculated about for centuries. Whatever He said must have been powerful because all of her accusers dropped their stones and walked away. The compassion/virtue flowed out of Him to the woman who crawled through the crowd and touched the hem of His garment and she was healed! He asked those He healed to keep it a secret, not to say who had healed them, but they spread the word about Him and the miracles they had seen!