"I will fulfil my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people" - Psalm 116
These (two) verses from Psalm 116 struck me today, for various reasons. But that is not what I want to write about.
God is sovereign.
I can be a rather cynical person, and when it comes to the more amazing workings of the Holy Spirit, this cynicism tends to be somewhere in the background (or sometimes in the foreground). This is probably a mixture of my experiences and my previous teachings in a cessationalist church. God keeps gently nudging me out of my cynicism and further into liberating realisations that He is not confined to doctrine, to theology or some next man's four-walled interpretations. This is not to say that a small amount of cynicism is not healthy.
But to repeat, God is sovereign.
I mention this because the cynical portion of me reared his head on Sunday morning. We were asked to pray for God to show us a picture of something (an item of clothing, a face, an object, maybe all of these or none of these) related to a person whom He wanted us to talk to in the following week. I will admit to not putting much stock in such suggestions, not because I don't believe God can do it, but because I'm not used to seeing Him work in that way. This time I prayed, however, and got a very clear picture of a man's tshirt / jumper. As it was so clear, I immediately thought that I must have seen somebody in church wearing the top, but I looked around after praying and realised that the person I thought may have been wearing it was wearing a plain black cardigan.
Monday and Tuesday came and went (with some very welcome distractions including an impromptu trip to Chester, being interviewed on the street about the male pill, and two full English breakfasts).
After the second breakfast (I have two breakfasts every day) on Wednesday morning, I walked out of the salubrious Gemini's cafe, bid goodbye to Dave and wandered homeward, enjoying the sunshine and thinking about where I could hand my CV in. Then who walks past but a guy wearing the very tshirt I'd seen in my head on Sunday. No question. So I stood on the corner for a while, deciding that I couldn't conscientiously pray for opportunities to serve God and then ignore them when they arise. So I walked back down the Oxford Road and after about 7 minutes caught up with him. I proceeded to freak him out, but hopefully God will take hold of His life and not let him go.
"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. The Lord works out everything for his own ends" - Proverbs 16
