Out of the Blue

11/20/12             Justin               about 30

Driving home from work I noticed a father sitting at a playground while his two daughters played on the jungle gym. I stopped the car, walked directly to him, and used a million dollar gospel tract to help jump-start a conversation.  This seemed a little different from just walking down the sidewalk or in a park and talking to whomever I might run into. It was a little more intentional and ran a little more risk of outright rejection, since I was clearly going out of my way to talk with a particular person.  But in some ways I think it is also a little more like the way God works in our lives.  As I’ve talked with people and heard hundreds of stories of how God reaches out to them, very often He works in a way that is a complete surprise and completely out of the control of the person He reveals Himself to.  It’s not like people can choose when and where they will encounter God.  He has a way of letting us know it is by His grace according to His timetable and in a way of His own choosing.  And that is often the initial reaction I feel from people I start witnessing conversations with.  They were just caught up in daily life, minding their own business, having a typical day and not expecting anything new to happen when all of a sudden this stranger comes out of the blue and they are suddenly thinking and talking about God and eternity in a way they had never thought of before. The young father’s name was Justin, and we had a good conversation but a short one because he was watching his daughters and, as I told him, I wanted to respect his time.  But I believe it was long enough to help raise some good questions in his mind, one of which just might have been whether or not God Himself had sent this stranger to talk with him in the park today.