If you read my blog last week, you know that I was able to get away for a week and spend some time with the Lord seeking vision and direction for our church. These times away are always so amazing and life-giving.
The only hard part about these times is coming back and playing catch-up. After being gone, my to do list is generally longer than usual. This can cause me to do exactly what I talked about not doing last week: Being in such a hurry to catch up that I miss the opportunities the Lord puts in front of me.
I returned to the church Saturday night to find that the air conditioner wasn’t working—just one more thing to add to my to do list. With the heat wave we were experiencing, we were fortunate to have a repairman come out on Wednesday.
Of course, the timing of his phone call wasn’t the best as I was in the middle of a few things I was trying to check off my list. But I figured I would let him in and allow him to do his thing, while I did mine. It was a nice thought, but not the way things went.
It was a new repairman who wasn’t familiar with our system. So I had to take some extra time to walk him down and show him where everything was. Right away we discovered that one of the units was iced over and he said he would have to shut things down and wait for it to melt.
As I was trying to figure out how I could get back to my work, I once again sensed that this was a divine opportunity that I needed to embrace. So I grabbed a couple bottles of cold water and pulled out a few chairs in the basement to sit on as we waited for the ice to melt.
In a matter of minutes, this repairman was asking me all sorts of questions about the Bible and God. I found out that he had become a Christian in prison but hadn’t been to church in awhile. By the end of the conversation, he was talking about how he needed to start reading the Bible and focusing on his relationship with the Lord again. Afterwards, I realized how easily I could have missed this opportunity. And it made me wonder how many opportunities I’ve missed. How many times have I been in a hurry and failed to embrace the opportunities that God was putting right in my path? I’m continuing to learn how important it is to stop and look at what appear to be distractions and make sure they’re not actually an opportunity that God has given us to share His love. Let’s seek to be people who do a better job of embracing the opportunities God sets before us!
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