My wife and I decided to go for a walk a few days ago. We often go for walks together and most of the time we take a particular route, with a few variations. This day, though, I thought I would like to take a different route. Well, I did not know it at the time, and it appeared to be a minor whim, but that thought turned out to be the clever voice of God.
He had a specific mission for us.
So, we turned left where we would normally have turned right. We had not gone far when we stopped to chat with a man shoveling snow off his driveway. As he started to open up about some concerns he was having about his kids and the challenges he was facing with them being pulled into a secular society, I began to realize, “This man is baring his heart to us, right here on his driveway, and Holy Spirit was giving us an opportunity to actually share his load.”
“That was a God moment,” my wife commented as we walked away a short while later. I was beginning to realize the course we were on.
As we strolled along, we paused to say hello to a group of people just standing outside talking. But as we moved on, we noticed that one of the couples had broken away from the group and had started walking behind us. So, we slowed down and commenced chatting with them. It seems that they had just moved into town off the farm. While he seemed ok with the move since, as she put it, “He still gets up every day and goes back to the farm and is gone all day. Nothing much has changed for him, but it has for me!”
She was not ok.
Something told me, while walking along together, that this was a significant moment. This was yet another opportunity for us to relieve someone, to be a listening ear for them and to help bear the anxious load they were carrying.
We said good-bye and continued our walk. Shortly, however, we paused to chat with a young mom outside about to head out to buy groceries with her kids. As my wife chatted with her, I played a little with the kids, who were, by the way, extremely cute and totally irresistible! Again, it was brief, but yet, as God moments always are, momentous.
But God had yet one more. As we left, two teenage boys who lived just across the street were outside. They had just got their license and had purchased their first cars. We joked around for a bit and they told me about their jobs, etc., mostly small talk, but yet we connected.
In reflecting afterwards, we thanked the Lord for the mission he had just called us to. It was not planned, it was simple and it was most natural, but we had just had the wonderful privilege of having four profound connections with some people who just needed a human and/or divine touch.