At the football game last Friday one of you shared an interesting experience with me.  In the middle of a busy day, in a setting not known to be the haunt of helpful and happy service types, you were visited by what appeared to be an angel.  Oh, not a real angel.  Or was it?  It was a person who helped you without reservation and with obvious joy.  You asked that person if he believed in angels, because he seemed to be one.  And he responded something about God working in mysterious ways.  He went on to reveal that he was a fellow believer in Jesus, and you two then talked together for more than a few minutes in a setting not normally blessed with the conviviality of its patrons.

 Isn’t it great when something like that happens, when your whole day is tempered by what some might term a chance encounter, but what is really a divine appointment? 

I remember that happening to me on the other side of the world in a Starbucks Café in the Kuala Lumpur Airport.  Her name was April, and from her seat near the counter she shepherded me through the maze of lattes and cappuccinos.  Further conversation with her revealed that she was the only female pilot/mechanic with Missionary Aviation Fellowship in the whole world.  She was serving in Sumatra, working primarily in the tsunami relief effort MAF is doing there.  She was on her way home to Eureka, CA for some time off.  She was graduated from the Moody Bible Institute in 2002. 

This all happened on Resurrection Morning back in March when Luana and I were returning from India, clear on the other side of the world.  It was not a chance encounter.  It was a divine appointment.  And we were all encouraged in our walk with Jesus as a result.

Someone might think you’re an angel if you live the Truth you profess to believe, because in the course of doing so your actions and demeanor in a grim and impersonal world will bring you into contact with people who need what you have to offer.  And that contact will be an appointment that He has set up.  Don’t miss it.

And, don’t miss this Sunday when we examine a well-known account of three men whose lives and actions demonstrated that obeying God was more important to them than anything else.  Not even the flames of a furnace that was designed to “smelt” human beings would deter them from their commitment to their God.  What do Shadrach, Meshack, and Abed-nego have to say to us today?