Pastor Jeff spoke of chance encounters Sunday morning. He shared several stories from his recent trip up north where he ran into various individuals and was able to be a witness or encouragement almost with no effort of his own. I was encouraged by this as it is basically the story of my life. Ironically, we had one of those chance encounters this morning...
It actually started last November during our annual Christmas Holiday visit to SIlver Dollar City. We received a free family picture and an opportunity to book one of those free weekends in exchange for a tour. We swore ourselves against those over a decade ago, but for whatever reason I caved and agreed to this one. It ended up being a good deal. We received two free rooms for two nights for under $100 and it included unlimited access to an indoor water park and a $100 restaurant gift certificate.
Anyway we got there, met our guide, and struck off a good conversation. Our guide's name was Steve. He mentioned a couple things right up front. He was a Christian and honest to a fault. I told him since he was honest I was going to be too. We had absolutely no intention of purchasing anything. He said he respected that but couldn't let us off the hook on the tour. We understood that.
He didn't waste a lot of time on a sales pitch though. He shared with us that he had been married and divorced three times and was now a single father of four young children. He also shared he had just recently gone through a hard bout with cancer.
He mentioned a tremendous respect for our enduring relationship. He said he had been in an online relationship for a while and was really considering asking her to move in with him. I asked him if that is how his other relationships had begun and he responded yes. He could not imagine committing to a marriage without giving it a trial run first. I asked the obvious, if if that had worked for him so far and he laughed and said no. We talked quite a while about marriage and my philosophy on what makes it work. He admitted that he knew cohabitation was part of God's plan and would consider my challenge to do it right this time.
I'm not saying this fellow is going to do the right thing in this relationship. I do know that we left him considering it . My prayer is he will. I also pray for his continued health and God's blessing on his children. The point is this, this was obviously no "chance" encounter. I really believe God was orchestrating this encounter over eight months ago. What is awesome, is God has a plan for this young man's life and I might have been a part of orchestrating that divine plan without even knowing it.
As Pastor Jeff said yesterday morning... "There is more going on than meets the eye, so keep your eyes open and make the best of every opportunity."
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