He's got amazing timing

I never cease to be amazed when God makes it clear that He knows exactly what He is doing. I have had tons of moments like that in my life, but the last seven months they have been happening more often than ever.

Yesterday I taught a message about what we should do when life crashes. I focused on the fact that although our circumstances in life change, God never changes. His love for us remains the same when times are tough or easy, and that He has not abandoned us when tragedy strikes. Since the service ended yesterday I have had person after person tell me that they needed to hear those words, which proves that whenever there are a few hundred people gathered together there is a lot of hurt and heartache present.

Here is something that is really cool about the timing of yesterday's message. The idea for that message, and all the messages I will teach this month, came out of a brainstorming session back in February of 2008. From time to time I will leave town for a couple of days to pray about and brainstorm new ideas for messages. In February of 2008 I spent two days in Hendersonville, NC and I wrote out the ideas for the "re:boot" series that we are doing now. I tucked them away in a folder labeled "Future Message Series". Since then I have pulled out that sheet of paper several times as I was scheduling messages on the calendar. For whatever reason I would look over it and decide to put it back in the "Future" folder for consideration later. A couple of months ago I decided that August would be a good month for the series. This afternoon I found out that sitting in yesterday's service was a child who only days earlier had lost a parent. This child had never been to Freedom before, but was visiting with a friend. When I discovered this I couldn't help but be utterly amazed at how God knows exactly what needs to happen when. If I had taught that message seven months ago, seven weeks ago, or even just seven days ago this child would not have been there to hear it. What a great reminder that I need to begin everyday asking God to move me out of the way so that He can do what needs to be done.