God Speaking

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”

(Proverbs 3: 5 – 6 KJV)

Recently I was with my family in the Food Court of a busy Mall when I had quite a nasty fall and as I did, a chair that was behind me crashed on to my head. I was stunned for a second and when I opened my eyes a man was kneeling beside me and in a very gentle voice was asking me questions, slowly and clearly, assuring me he was an off-duty fireman, trained as a first responder. His calm voice and confident manner calmed my anxious daughters and his wife handed my daughter a pack of Kleenex to stem the blood flowing from a cut on my head. This man’s confident handling of the whole situation was exactly what our whole family needed. That man was in the right place at the right time to use his skills to help another.

No broken bones, just a sore bump on the head was the good outcome

I was thinking back to the verse in Proverbs 3 which tells us to allow the Lord to direct our paths and I always thought that meant it was for our benefit to help us make big decisions in life. My fall that day gave me a whole different perspective as to what the verse meant. Those who love the Lord need to ask the Lord to direct where they should be, so we can be his hands at a moment’s notice, to be used by the Holy Spirit to comfort, encourage perhaps even rescue someone in need.

We had a beautiful example of this in one of our church Bible studies, when one of the ladies shared, she suddenly felt the Lord was asking her to check on a friend who she knew had been depressed and when she went to the friend’s apartment, her friend had taken an overdose of her medication. The lady had been in the right place at the right time and was able to take her friend to the hospital and possibly saved her life.

When we are willing to be available for the Lord to use, we will be certainly in the right place, if we start the day concentrating upon what pleases us that day, we may miss the beautiful opportunity of being used as a vessel of the Holy Spirit.

Ecclesiastes has a beautiful passage reminding us of the importance of being available for each other and when the director of operations is the Lord we will be truly blessed for being in the right place at the right time.

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?” (Ecclesiastes 4: 9 – 11)