To start off, the simple fact that people were willing to let me know they read the article and appreciated it was a surprise enough. It wasn’t the first article in three years of submissions that I had received any comments, but it was probably the greatest amount of compliments. One woman, who will likely read this, surprised me to say something to the effect of “Whenever I look through the paper and see your picture, I know I’m going to enjoy the article.” I was sincerely blown away by that comment. I am thankful to God that I have the platform to write for a wider audience. It is Him who gave me and continues to give me the opening of which to write. I thank those who I heard from this past month.
Probably the biggest surprise came a couple of weeks after the publish date of the previous article. It happened the Sunday of the time change. The day before, a Saturday, I sent out over 300 text messages to people I have in my address book on my phone to remind them to advance their clocks that night. I am kind of odd that way when it comes to holidays, time change, etc. If it is a holiday, some will respond with gratitude and returning the same greeting. This was one such that people basically said thanks. I did receive a couple that didn’t realize it was the day of the time change. The surprise came in the middle of the night after going to bed.
I woke up the next morning to have a message on my phone that read, “I don’t know who you are, but you just saved my life.” I thought, “What? You are in my phone book and a Facebook friend, of course you know me.” But upon further investigation, I noticed a signature the person uses did not match up with the name of my friend. This was someone completely different. Of course, I did not know them, as well.
I responded with a “You’re welcome.” I was left wondering “How did I save their life?” I don’t think it was literal, but when you help someone out with a big favor and it made a significant difference in their life.
Later, I probed a bit deeper. For one, I think that our crossing of paths did not happen by accident. I think that my friend changed her number and this person was assigned this number because God knew we needed to cross paths at one point, which is likely this point. Not only would we cross paths, but I would provide something she needed at that time. Kind of reminds me of a “woman at the well” scenario (John 4).
You see, when people have a need and you are open to being surprised by God, there are going to be times that you don’t even realize you are meeting a need. Nor do you seek out to meet that need, you just go about daily life and God does the rest by His Spirit putting things in place. I was meeting over 300 people’s need to remind to turn their clocks forward. His Spirit put it in place for me to cross paths with someone who I would “save someone’s life” by meeting an anonymous person’s need. That is the beauty of this whole concept!
Since I did meet such a “needed need” in this person’s life, I had an open door to communicate. I continued to foster that communication by inviting her to receive my free texts of encouragement that I send out each Tuesday. They are currently going to over 220 people from Scotland to the west coast of the America. She said she needed encouragement and looked forward to signing up. Also, having this open door, after providing a need, it allowed me to learn more about her faith or, in this case, a lack of faith. These are the types of scenarios I am hoping that will get you excited and cause you to look for the surprises in your life.
There is a bit more to the story, but I hope you get the point about God continually surprises. It is an exciting life to lead where you look forward to an encounter with people you meet rather than dread them. You never know when someone will need something you can provide and seeing it as a surprise which God’s Spirit set in motion!
My e-mail is ichthus_man@hotmail.com and I’d love to hear about your “surprising stories!”
