Right on Time

“He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11, NASB.

I really didn’t know what to expect that night as I sat sipping my hot tea and fidgeting a little.  The little wooden bench in the road-side coffee stand was getting more and more uncomfortable as I waited for my friends to finish their prayers at the local mosque. Since it was the month of Ramadan, more commonly referred to as “the month of fasting”, my friends had invited me to play tennis after they had finished “breaking fast” and praying their “Traweh” prayers.
 
As I sat, I watched the silhouette of an elderly man approaching me. Small puffs of dust rolled at his feet as he walked across the dry soccer field in front of the mosque. I recognized his shuffling gait and knew him to be one of the elderly men in the village. As he drew closer, I began to sense the Holy Spirit’s presence and prompting and knew that I was about to enjoy a divine appointment!
 
He eased himself down on a bench beside me, kicked off his sandals, and fumbled with a small cigarette packet. He pulled out one of his “home-rolled” cigarettes. Satisfied with one he found, we started with small talk and eventually I asked him what he thought of the stories I had been telling in the village. He explained he was very much for the telling of stories from the Holy Scriptures. He made a comment about Adam and Eve’s fall into sin from Genesis and so I asked him, “God said that if they ate of the fruit from the tree in the center of the garden, that they would “surely die”, but the story clearly indicates, that in fact, they didn’t die, because they lived on to have many children. Could God possibly have told a lie or could He have possibly been wrong?” 

He took a long reflective drag on his cigarette and then said, simply, “God probably meant that they would die spiritually, because of their disobedience.”

“How do you suppose then that we go about having our spirits raised from the dead, born again, because, after all, we all have disobeyed God in some way, haven’t we?,” I asked. 
 
He nodded in agreement, I could see that he wanted me to go on. From there, I retold our Father’s story of redemption. I recounted the story of Moses being ordered by God to slay the sacrificial lamb all the way to God sending His Own Sacrificial Lamb, Jesus, to be the payment for all mankind’s sin. “Through faith in Him, our spirits are given new life,” I concluded.

What a thrill it is to share our Father’s story and even more of a thrill to see the light “go on” in eyes of the one with whom you are sharing. Just then, my friends showed up to play tennis. Seeing them come the man said, “We must talk more of these things.” With that, he slid his feet into his sandals and shuffled out into the dark. My friends were an hour late. Thinking about the conversation I had just finished, it seemed to me that my friends were on time after all!

Pray that:

Pacific Rim personnel will never grow weary in sharing the marvelous story of God’s redemption.

God will give believers many divine appointments, and that believers will be sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

The elderly man will do more than hear; pray that he will receive the gift of Jesus so that he will be born again!

A spiritual harvest will occur in this village where God’s stories are being told.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.