Coincidences?

Ever ask your friends to pray with you about something really specific and the prayer was answered, but one of your friends declared, "I think it was just a coincidence!"

Well, that has happened to me.  And I think, 'Well, he just doesn't know God my Father who loves me and listens to me! After all, He is my Father!'

Here's how Corrie ten Boom responded once: "All I know is when I pray, coincidences happen! When I don't pray, they don't happen"

Good answer!

Bible scholars tell me that the Hebrew language has no such word for "coincidence." That concept is not imaginable to them! There is no such word as a coincidence -- because there is no such event! They call this occasion, "God appointments" or "divine appointments."

I like that!

In Acts 8 w read about a God-appointment for Philip the evangelist. He is preaching to crowds in Samaria. Then an angel appeared and instructed him to leave and travel south to the desert road. Then the angel directed him to a chariot, where an important Ethiopian government official was sitting, reading the scroll of Isaiah. He needed some help understanding what he was reading. Philip obeyed God's appointment and showed him what it meant and how it related to Jesus  -- it was not a coincidence that he appeared,  and neither was the water they passed when the man asked if he could be baptized!

And in John 4 we read about Jesus leaving Judea and returning to Galilee. He  decided to go the short route through Samaria -- a really strange route for a Jew! Why did He  go that way? Because He had a God-appointment there at Jacob's well with a woman at noon...maybe she thought His being there was just a coincidence!

God is at work in your life right now preparing people for you to talk to, and preparing you to deliver His gospel message!  Bringing you together is not a coincidence -- it is a divine appointment! A God-appointment!

Be alert! Pay attention! Pray each morning for open eyes!

Peter understood. He tells us in 1 Peter 3:15 -- "In your heart revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope you have."

Always be ready to explain the miracle that happened in your heart - with gentleness, respect and humility!

Always be ready for those "coincidences!"