Good morning and happy Saturday. If you are up early this morning, the Men’s breakfast starts at 8:00. It will be a good time of fellowship and food. Omar will lead us in a few songs and Jim Roberts will be sharing a devotional.
A couple of weeks ago, Michelle and I took advantage of the nice weather to take a walk on a Monday evening. I had been meeting with the deacons during the 40 days of prayer every Monday evening for six weeks, so this was our first opportunity in a long time. We desperately needed to get some fresh air and some exercise, so we found our tennis shoes (even though we don’t play tennis) and headed for the door. I even intentionally left my phone behind thinking I could get an hour of solace. With eager anticipation we hit the streets ready for a lengthy walk basking in the warmth of the evening sunshine. We had power walked our way past three or four driveways when I noticed an older lady outside messing with a Royals flag. Being neighborly, I called out to her and asked how she was. She responded by telling me she couldn’t get her flag to work right. She then said something about she didn’t know why there was a screw sticking out of it anyway. If you are aware the complexities of a modern flag holder, they consist of a flagpole which gets inserted into a holder which has a set screw to keep it in place. At that moment, I had a choice to make. Should I wish her good luck while we continued on our task of getting the walk in that we had rightfully earned? Instead, I asked her if I could look at it to see if I could help. Of course, she readily accepted my offer and, as we soon discovered, really liked to talk. It took about 37 seconds to loosen the set screw, insert the flagpole completely, and re-tighten the screw. It took much longer to hear about how long she had lived in the neighborhood, about the neighbors, etc. Fortunately for us, after a while, she had an appointment show up and we were about to embark on our journey once again. Satisfied we had done our good deed for the day, I think we even picked up the pace knowing that we had a long way to go and less time to get there. We turned the corner and headed north on Pflumm. We began to speculate if there would be enough daylight to take our long route or if we would need to shorten it. We decided to risk it and go for the distance. One block past, then another. Woo hoo, we were making progress now. Nothing was going to stand in our way of completing the task at hand. And then I saw a man standing by his back fence. Immediately, I sensed that something was up. I called out to him and asked how he was doing. His response, “My mom just had a stroke.” Immediately we could tell he was having a hard time. Again, we had a choice to make. Should we simply say something trite like, “we’re sorry to hear that” and keep walking? As convenient as that might be sometimes, it is not what we did. Having been in these situations before, I knew that this would not be a two-minute conversation. Nevertheless, we walked over to him and began to talk. He shared about his mom and we offered to pray with him. That took him by surprise and he opened up and shared about his life. He said he is a Christian but hadn’t really been going anywhere. We talked about life in Christ and the importance of being part of a fellowship of believers. We invited him to church and hope that he comes this Sunday. By the end of our time together he was clearly doing much better. It was one of the situations where God puts you at the right place at the right time. Many times in life it takes discernment to decide if something is a distraction or a divine appointment. Likely, there are many times we won’t know this side of heaven.
Being a very task-oriented person, I can sometimes be oblivious to the opportunities I encounter. I get fixed on accomplishing whatever task I am on and can view things more as a distraction than a divine appointment. I am thankful that on that Monday evening, God allowed me to stop what I was doing and help a couple of neighbors in need. Even if it did mean finishing a walk in the dark.
Distraction or divine appointment? 30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and taught. 31 He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a remote place and rest for a while.” For many people were coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. 32 So they went away in the boat by themselves to a remote place, 33 but many saw them leaving and recognized them, and they ran on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 34 When he went ashore, he saw a large crowd and had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Then he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:30-34).
From our neighborhoods to the nations,
Pastor Larry
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