When you let God lead you never know who you may encounter and what conversation you may have. Today, he had a plan and his plan was ten times better than anything I could have imagined.
Truthfully, I can’t say I am someone who lives from a day to day philosophy. I have always been a planner, for even as a child I planned my future out what I thought would happen and what I thought I wanted for my life and what order I believed it would happen in. It makes me laugh now because I realized the old saying ” tell god your plans and he'll laugh,” has a whole new and deeper meaning to me. I have seen the power in living day to day lately, trusting God and giving God the control to use my day in whatever way he wants to. Today, he decided to not follow my typical Friday afternoon routine he truly mixed it up. Let me explain..
I had one extremely random but powerful encounter with someone today that I honestly could never have planned for or imagined. It started out as a guy giving me his card to vote for him in the upcoming student government elections. He was friends with my friend’s brother and I found out through our introductions that he attends a church in Trenton. He went through his introductions and ended up being distracted by a professor he saw walk by. He started to then tell the story of his day and how God used it and right then I knew this was not going to be just any kind of Friday.
I could have excused myself and chose not to wait and listen with my friend, her brother and this new guy I just met. But something told me I better sit down so I did. It turned out he had a prof talk about the church and God in a business context, and did not do a fair job in describing the cost of being associated with a church and with God. So he rose his hand and with a few words uttered, ” there was only one cost and God paid it with his son”. Those words were bold and it took courage to speak that in a class that associates the church as a lucrative business and nothing more. He spoke about how the church is not solely a business to gain profit but that it has a purpose and that is to bring hope and salvation to people.
I saw his passion for Christ and I knew we shared a boldness for living with the purpose of sharing the good news to people. A discussion started to form, and in the midst of us God’s presence was there and the passion for God and his calling was loudly proclaimed in the middle of the school cafeteria. Yes this was bold to talk about Christ so publicly but passion took hold of us and we could not help but share our hearts with each other. However, what came from it truly spoke volumes about the God we serve.
The other two members of our posse had to leave for work and I was about to leave as well, but my spirit prompted me to stay. What I didn't see then that I see now was that God had a plan and to be perfectly honest he wanted me to pay attention. The Holy Spirit was leading me to listen carefully and little did I know the conversation we were going to have would be about something that I have been asking the Lord for since last year. It finally came to pass.
We spoke on the power of "going against the grain", going against what the world puts value and holding out for greater. We spoke on boundaries and why they are important and why they help keep us on the path of righteousness rather than on the path of destruction and death. We conversed about the power of meditating and truly digging into God’s word for it is truth and life to all those that hear it and he gave examples. However, what God truly spoke to me through this conversation in the cafeteria is that he leads gently and he does not force us to make a choice. He will give us the information and peace to make a decision and he will walk with us as we walk forward in our decision and on the righteous path. I began to realize that he lets us know when sin is at our door and what boundaries to put up to keep sin from entering in, and to keep our hearts and souls protected. Our conversation spoke of giving glory to God in our actions and in our words, but most importantly with our lives.
In Ephesians 6:13-19 it talks about putting on the armor of God. I remind myself to do this often times but I didn't necessarily know what that entailed until today. As children of God, we are protected by a spiritual armor that consists of faith, peace, truth, integrity and salvation. We use prayer as a weapon against the enemy and it truly helps strengthen our faith and our trust in the Lord and in his battle gear he gives us.
That passage was a good reminder, but it was so much more than that. It was a proclamation that he is on the battlefield alongside me. He has placed people to have seemingly random conversations to help propel me forward in confidence, even if I am unsure of what lies ahead. See, God knew that we both needed to talk about the struggles we face by holding out for greater, and that we needed to encourage each other to be strong in the Lord and be bold and proclaim his truth no matter the persecution we endure. He gets the glory for today’s encounter. Both of us left touched by the goodness of God and his faithfulness and we saw firsthand the unpredictability of the God we serve and love with our whole hearts.
All this to say, when you give over your every day over to God to use he may just surprise you and he will bless you and give you the strength to take everything that the day and evening will bring. He is such a Good God.
I must also add that the Holy Spirit prompted my spirit to wait and listen and if I didn't heed that “gut feeling” or conviction then I truly would have missed out. All in all, today was a day that showed me the importance of not rushing and going through the day but we must let God have control over every minute and every hour of the day to use as he so inclines. It’s our choice. What will you choose?
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