Have you ever experienced a divine appointment? I am talking about when you meet up with someone, friend, or stranger, and started realizing this was not by chance. You know God set you both on a path to meet and have this conversation.
Well, that happened to me
recently, and I want to share it with you.
We have a prayer meeting at
our church every Wednesday evening. Last week as we were praying I thought
about the fact that I hadn’t had anyone to witness to who was really interested
in hearing about God for a while. I just asked God to help me to have someone
to talk to who would listen.
I am not a big shopper, and I
never go to the mall. However, there has been one thing I have needed to go do
at the mall for a long time. For various reasons I have put it off for 4 or 5
months. On Friday I woke up and knew I needed to go to the mall that day. So I did.
As my brother Rick and I were
walking through the mall there was a young man selling skin care products at a
kiosk. He asked me to come over to the kiosk but I said no. he wouldn’t take no
for an answer to the point that he took me by the hand and lead me to the
kiosk. He informed me that he travels from mall to mall and that he was only
here for a week. (that is why God sent me to the mall on that exact day)
I have written two children’s
Christian books telling the stories of creation, and the fall and salvation. Somehow
as this young man, Daniel, and I were talking I mentioned my books. As I told
him about them he said we serve different gods.
I asked him who he serves and
he told me he is a Jew and they serve Yahowa. I explained that we also serve
Jehovah. It is the same name, just the Jewish and English pronunciations. Then I
told him we also serve Jesus.
As we talked he started
saying he didn’t feel like us meeting was an accident. He felt like God wanted
us to meet and have this conversation. I said I felt the same way. He told me
that four or five times.
This led to a conversation
for about twenty minutes. He told me he could never serve Jesus or his family
would throw him out.
I had to be at a certain
place by noon so we had to move on.
On the way back as we passed
Daniel we waived to each other. He walked over to me and asked me to tell him
about my books. This opened up the conversation again.
He told me he prays to the
east three times a day. I asked him if he really wants to know what the truth
is and he said he really does. So, I said if he would ask God to show him the
truth every time he prays, that God would show him.
I kept thinking about Daniel
saying he couldn’t serve Jesus because his family would throw him out. So, I told
him about Jews for Jesus, which is a group of Jews who have become Christians. I
knew they could relate to him on a level I couldn’t.
I asked him if he would read
my books if I gave him a set. I also asked him if he would read Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John if I gave him a Bible. He thought I meant for him to read it all in
one night and he about had a heart attack. I told him no, to just read about
five minutes a night. I believed if he really was wanting to know the truth, five
minutes would lead to more. He agreed to do that. He told me his job is to
travel from town to town for a week at a time and work the kiosks. He said
Monday would be his last day there and he would be moving on to the next mall. I
told him I would be back. He let me lay hands on him and pray for him.
Rick and I went to Walmart
and bought him a Bible. However, as I looked at it I realized it was a very
plain Bible and there was nothing in it to help him understand. God impressed
on me to give him my study Bible which has all kinds of information in it to
help you understand what you are reading. I knew that was what he needed to
read.
As I told people about Daniel
everyone wanted to help. My friend from our church, Diana Symons, put Daniel on
the prayer chain, and she felt God wanted her to give him a copy of a wonderful book she wrote. It is called The Key of David. It is a beautiful read.
My sister, Diane, wrote down
a lot of scriptures showing where the old testament describes Jesus as the
messiah.
We had a pastor from India,
Brother Santosh Thomas, visiting our
church and he prayed over Daniel. It was one of the most powerful prayers I have
ever heard.
On Monday, his last day
before leaving town for his next assignment, I showed up with the set of my
books, the study Bible, The Key of David, and a paper I typed up giving the
scripture references my sister gave me (including the page numbers to help find
them) the web address for Jews for Jesus, and the web address to my blog.
Daniel was amazed and said he
couldn’t accept all of this. He thought we were doing too much for him. I told
him he had to accept it because God had impressed it on all of us to give these
things to him.
He said okay, and that he
would read fifteen minutes a day even though I had only asked for five.
He assured me he is a very
honest person and that he really will do the things he promised, (reading
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, reading my two books, reading The Key of David,
praying and asking God to show him the truth, checking out the Jews for Jesus website, and spending fifteen minutes a
day on this.)
I had included my email
address so he promised he would email me and let me know what he thinks.
Before I left he said he
thought they were going to schedule him to come back to our mall in about February.
He said he would email me the date when he would be back because he would like
to talk to me some more about this.
I can’t stop thinking about
this because it was so obviously arranged by God. Please help me pray for
Daniel. I believe God is going to change this young man’s life.
I don’t want you to think I'm saaying that I did all of this. It was not me. It was God showing me and encouraging me
to say and do it.
God has people for all of us
to talk to and all we have to do is ask Him and then do what He shows us. He does
all the hard work.
I encourage each of you to
ask God to give you people to talk to. But, be ready because He will do it.
When you have encounters like
this I would love to hear about them. You can write to me at littlechrisameebooks@gmail.com
Think about it.
