What Just Happened?

            Do you start your day out by surrendering it to God? Each morning I pray the Lord will organize my day and order my steps. I want the Lord’s agenda, not mine and often times his agenda is pretty similar to the one I laid out, but not always. Sometimes at the end of the day, I ask, “What just happened?” Have you experienced that?

            Yesterday is a great example.  Our Pearls ministry team has numerous events coming up.  I am blessed to be speaking four times in the next two weeks and there is preparation to do for that. We also have a book signing event for the Pearls of Promise devotional on April 7th that we need to get ready for. So at our pearls meeting yesterday, there were lists to go over, messages to practice and plans to make, but God had a different agenda.  That’s the way it happens when you give your schedule to him.

            I received an email from a woman from our church. We were supposed to have a phone conversation last week but I forgot to call her.  Today she was asking to speak at noon. Noon? Hmmm…  That’s about the time we take a lunch break from our meeting but we needed to take a quick lunch break.  There was no time for socializing. I then clearly heard, “Ask her to lunch.” What would it hurt?  I liked her and thought our director of outreach would enjoy meeting her as well so I invited her to lunch and she responded, “Yay!  See you then.” 

            I was thinking, “We have to keep this to an hour.” Little did I know the Lord was telling her to block out her afternoon.

            As it turned out, the three of us spent hours at lunch and then came back to the house and met some more.  We realized we all had the same goals in mind, to reach women for Christ.  We also found out our new friend was a talented Christian humorist who desired venues to speak at. We came to the conclusion we could work together.  At certain events she could warm up the crowd with her humor and then I could provide the more serious message.

            But here’s the amazing part.  We are planning a trip to Tennessee to promote the Pearls of Promise devotional in September and need a couple more speaking engagements to make the trip work.  We had originally targeted Mississippi as a possible stopover, then yesterday morning a friend suggested we go through Arkansas.  I remembered I had a friend in ministry at a church in Little Rock so I called her.  She is working on something for us at her church.  Then in our lunch meeting with the Christian humorist, we told her about the Arkansas plan and she responded, “I have three relatives who are pastors in Little Rock.” “Really?” I responded, as my brain began to spin. With a blink of the eye, our Southern tour was being laid out with a Christian humorist ready to travel with us to enhance the package.

            Before this meeting, I had been praying for the Lord to put this book promotional trip together and to provide speaking venues to pay for the trip. By giving my day to him yesterday, he answered my prayer. If I had said “no” to the lunch idea because we had too much to do, I’d still be concerned about the trip today and we would not have a new member of our pearls team. It pays to listen to God.

            Proverbs 16:9 says, In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.  Do you have a death grip on your agenda or are you willing to go where the Lord directs you? Today, try giving your day over to God and see what happens. It is an exciting way to live.  Maybe at the end of the day, you’ll be saying, “What just happened?”