One of the things I loved at Grace when I first came to the church was Dr. Euler’s scheduling of God sightings. On the designated evenings members were encouraged to share God sightings–specific instances where God had shown up, perhaps had arranged a meeting where they had a chance to be like Jesus. I loved hearing others’ testimonies. So let me share with you my recent God sighting.
My
daughter Sarah and her family, including her mother-in-law, and I, went eclipse
chasing. We headed for southeastern Illinois where there was to be
totality for just over four minutes. We were tent camping, which is a
whole other story.
Before we arrived at our campsite we
stayed in a hotel in western Kentucky on Saturday night. Before we went
to bed, Daniel emphasized that we had to be up early, ready to leave by just
after 7 a.m. I made a mental note and also set an alarm. Here is where
it got dicey. My brain was on Eastern time, but we were in the Central time
zone.
The next morning, I woke early and glanced
at the time. I decided my alarm had not gone off and we were late. I
jumped out of bed, turned the light on, and began getting dressed and packing
my bag. Obviously I woke up Jan, Daniel’s mother, who was sharing the
room with me. She also started dressing and packing her bag. When
we were ready we woke up Ruben, my grandson, and got him dressed. About
then we realized there was no light under the door to Sarah and Daniel’s room,
so obviously they had also overslept.
We knocked on their door, only to be told
that it was only 5:30, and they were going back to sleep. Oops! I
was still on Eastern time. Of course, we were wide awake by now and there
was not a chance we would get back to sleep.
We finally wandered out into the lobby,
hoping they were serving breakfast early. They were. We got our food and I
headed around the corner to get coffee. Here is where God showed up. The young man who had worked the night shift
came to get coffee just as I did. We began chatting and the conversation
moved quickly to spiritual things. He didn’t know the Lord, but he wanted
to and had been thinking about it a lot. He didn’t have a Bible, but promised
he would get one and start with the book of John. I showed him how he could download
the Bible app onto his phone, and he did it right then. The phone rang at
the desk and he had to go back to the desk to answer. He got off work
right after that and disappeared.
So why did my brain get mixed up and wake
me up early? I am convinced it was God, just to give me a chance to talk
to Devan, that needy young man.
The first verse
that popped into my head about that day was I Peter 3:15, “But sanctify Christ
as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who
asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness
and reverence.” I am not always ready to speak. Sometimes I have
good excuses (reasons!) why I cannot speak up. Maybe it’s not convenient. Maybe
I’m afraid I won’t know what to say. Maybe I'm feeling shy. But my
longing is to be used of God, to speak when the Holy Spirit prods me.
As I pondered the whole experience, I
realized that I had missed an important illustration. In Mark 1:17 Jesus
said to Andrew and Peter, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of
men. Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.” That was only one
of a number of meetings where Jesus said, “Follow me.” Jesus asked the rich
young ruler to follow Him, and he turned away sorrowing. The price was
higher than he wanted to pay.
So what is a major part of following
Jesus? He looked for opportunities to minister to people. He looked
for God sightings. He saw the woman at the well trying to hide her
background. He saw Zacchaeus up in a tree, just trying get a glimpse of
Him. He saw Bartimaeus crying out at the edge of the crowd. He saw
the woman with an issue of blood hiding in the crowd, wanting just to touch the
hem of His garment. There were hungry hearts then, and there are hungry
hearts today. Only today we are the hands and feet and mouths of Jesus.
Help me, Lord, to be on the lookout for those who are hungry for
You.
~~Faith Himes Lamb
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