Divine Appointments

(Jn.4:4)

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veryone has a scheduled appointment with God, everyone.  “It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.” It cannot be canceled; it cannot be rescheduled. It cannot be ignored. There is a day and a moment when the last grain of sand will slip through the narrow neck of the hour glass.  Every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve will stand before the Lord of the Universe to give account of what they did with life and what they did with God’s Word (or more specifically, what they did with Jesus). 

There is another appointment scheduled in every life when each and every person will have an encounter with God. Some of those scheduled appointments are as dramatic and catastrophic as a train wreck.  Times of catastrophic loss are actually learning moments.  The wilderness experience was an opportunity for God to “humble, to prove” and to see what was in the heart of each Hebrew who went through that dry and barren place.  Someone said there are actually no accidents only lessons (or opportunities and appointments).  Some divine appointments are more gentle encounters like the aligning of the planets, or like when a woman of Samaria sets off to a well to fetch water as she has done a thousand times before.  Unknown to that woman however, this particular day is circled on a divine calendar and inscribed in God’s own hand “must needs go through Samaria.” 

There, at Jacob’s well, Jesus Christ shows up on time and his politically correct disciples are off shopping, leaving the Creator of the Universe alone to engage a Samaritan sinner, and save a soul.  He met us (as well) at some altar when we bowed our head to pray, or we found him in the Psalter, when we read, he showed the way. Perhaps when we were broken, in a corner or at wit’s end; then as from death awoken, we found the sinner’s Friend. Perhaps it's time to call someone, for us to be that friend, show God's love to others, or to someone's need attend.   -id