God Moments

A group of us are reading through the book of Acts this summer and today we were looking at chapter 16 where Paul and Silas get beaten and chunked in the slammer for casting out an annoying demon from a slave girl.

*sidenote*
I’ve returned to my normal summer schedule today. I am blown away about how long the days seem to be when you don’t sleep as good at night. I don’t know how we are going to make it once school starts back up in a month and a half.
*end of sidenote*

Y’all know the story. They are singing and having church (By church I don’t mean they were singing two hymns and some praise choruses and then someone preached and they took an offering and then went home unchanged, but I mean church, where God was present and they encountered him in a fresh way that rejuvenated their souls in such a way that it cause all the hardened, sissy-hating criminals in the jail with them to listen.)

Then the earthquake came and the doors flew open and the jailor freaked out and Paul told him to get a grip its okay, they were all there. The jailor then came trembling and asked them, “What must I do to be saved?”

That is a difficult concept for me. The last time I saw an earthquake on TV I didn’t see any trembling people asking that question. What was it about the earthquake that hit the jailor and turned him to God?

I am convinced that there are times in life that God shows up in a very real, very tangible way and it not only cannot be discarded as “coincidence” but it even causes unbelievers to fall on their knees and go, “what must I do?” I think any normal person would say, “oh, the earthquake, good luck for the prisoners, bad luck for the guards,” but not this guy he sees the hand of God coming to rescue his captive children and he is all of a sudden faced with the fact that his standing on the wrong side of the battlefield and it freaks him out.

The longer I am here the more I am convinced that “luck” and “coincidence” are nonbeliever terms. Everything is a God moment. God moves and we choose to give him credit/glory or choose to blow him off. I am beginning to see the moments when a taxi driver catches something I’ve said and wants to know more, when a “religious” person hears the Way and isn’t turned off by it, as God moments. Did I catch them on a good day? Maybe he was in a good mood? The answer is God moved and I get to be the earthquake to grab someone’s attention. Coincidence? I think not!