Have
you ever had one of those days or weeks when things didn’t quite work the way
you had planned? You have a vision of how things are going to go and then
events take over or a phone call comes or a visitor appears. This is how my
week has been. I have had one thing after another that seemed to sidetrack so
many of my plans, which affect the plans of others. Oh, it doesn’t mean that
the things I have to get done go away, but it often means that there are
obstacles and roadblocks and interruptions to getting those things
accomplished. You know exactly what I’m talking about, you have been there as
well.
I often want to just throw my hands in the air and say, “I GIVE UP!!!”
We I read portions of the Bible I encounter many characters who have the same sort of
experiences––sometimes there are obstacles of their own making; sometimes God
puts up roadblocks; sometimes others cause interruptions to the flow of
routine––but in all of these experiences, at least in my own life and in
observing others, one thing that I notice is that God is still working.
God
works in individual lives, in community, in difficulty, walking through
valleys of the shadows of death, in joys and on mountaintops. God works in
times of celebration and times of sorrow when communities come together to
remember.
Sometimes
when our plans don’t work out the way we envisioned them it is exasperating.
But here is a challenge, it is what I was challenged with this week to stop and see God
at work—in other people, in a gruff stranger that helped, in an enemy, in a
quiet moment you hadn’t planned on, even in the desperation of having to ask
someone else for help. Where is God at work in your life that maybe you were
too busy planning to see God? Take a deep breath and experience a fresh breath
of God’s presence.
