Merritt Opening Song: 516 All The Way My Savior Leads Me
Scripture: Isaiah 25:1, In perfect faithfulness You have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.
Title: Chance or Providence
An antique collector is walking through the city when he notices a mangy cat lapping milk from a saucer in the doorway of a store. He does a double take, as he notices the saucer is extremely old and valuable. He walks into the store and offers to buy the cat for two dollars. The store owner replies, "I'm sorry, but the cat’s not for sale."
The collector says, "I could use a hungry cat around the house to catch mice. I'll pay you twenty dollars for that cat."
The owner says "Sold" and hands over the cat.
Collector says, "For the twenty bucks I wonder if you’d throw in that old saucer. The cat's used to it and it will save me having to get a dish."
The owner says, "Sorry buddy, but that is my lucky saucer. So far this week I've sold eight cats and I don’t know why.”
Things happen to us in life we don’t understand. A warm summer day a girl stopped by our place. She was running out of gasoline while driving for her first long distance trip to another province. We had a canister and my husband George poured gas into her tank. The young woman asked nicely, “Can I buy the canister to take with me on my trip, just in case I run out of gas again.” We told her she could buy a canister when she got to Merritt, but she insisted, so I let her buy it.
Our next trip to town, George went to buy a new canister. Waiting at the cashier, by the till he saw a wood splitter for sale. Now George was waiting for a wood splitter to go on sale from $600 to hopefully $400. This one had clearance price $125 when there was no advertised sale. George couldn’t believe it so he asked a salesman about the splitter. Worker confirmed someone returned it without the box and most importantly the instructions. George could find instructions on internet, so he gladly bought the splitter.
When George returned to doing electrical, he didn’t have much time to collect firewood from the forest. Our heating and all domestic water is heated by firewood. At Kane Valley near our home, pipeline workers dropped some huge trees and even removed limbs leaving wood for anyone to collect. Normally George couldn’t use such big trees because it’s too hard to split by hand. Now we are blessed to have a wood splitter, he can use those trees. Usually he’d work very hard de-limbing small trees hauling them in for firewood, which meant he could collect only one cord of wood per day. With huge trees, most already de-limbed, he brought in two cords per day. The biggest tree was a full cord. Such a blessing from God, all because a young girl insisted on buying our gas canister.
SONG: YOU ARE SO GOOD TO ME
One summer I was almost gored by a bull so I decided to put our property up for sale. I wanted to move to a smaller place where we wouldn’t need to allow cows to graze in order to qualify for farm taxes. George and I prayed for God’s will. As the realty listing ran out, I asked my realtor for advice. She told me a story. She listed a house for a retired couple who wanted to move to Vernon to live near their son. Everything was selling quickly, but strangely their house didn’t sell. After 4 months their listing ran out. They said they wanted to keep selling, but their plans had changed. Another son of theirs had moved from Texas to Nanaimo and bought a property with two houses. He wanted them to live in one of the houses. Now if their house had sold earlier, they would have bought in Vernon then had to sell again in order to move to Nanaimo. That would have been financial burden to them with moving costs and stress of buying in Vernon then selling again. They relisted their house and it sold in days. This way they could move to Nanaimo with least amount of upheaval.
I agreed it didn’t seem like God’s timing for us to sell. I thanked her and we let our listing expire. I told George I didn’t want to have bulls on our property anymore. A dairy farmer up the road said he would like to grow alfalfa on our land. The dairy farmer would bring irrigation equipment but he wanted George to put in irrigation well and pump. On the farmer’s own property, he drilled 140 feet well to get enough water to irrigate, and his submersible pump cost $15,000. My husband was born in Czechoslovakia. They didn’t have drilling equipment for 8 inch wide wells, so they dig 3 to 5 feet WIDE shallow wells. George’s father did wells for a living and George learned from him. So George was able to do irrigation well for our land and God worked it out. George hoped for 200 gallons per minute and the well produces 230-250 gallons per minute.
God knew before George was born things he would need to learn in his life. God knew what his father would do for a living, how that would answer our prayers and needs along life’s journey. I believe it is no accident you live where you live, you work or attend school where you do, no accident the people that are in your life are there. Things don’t just "happen". There is Divine leading. Question becomes, why? Sometimes only God knows the answer. Holding onto faith that God is in control, helps us build faith in times when there are more questions than answers, gives us confidence to live each day with God.
Ruth 2:3, And Ruth went; and she came and gleaned in the fields after the reapers; and she chanced to light on an allotment of Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech. It seemed there were no possibilities open for Naomi. But just in time, a man of wealth and character, a man of God happened to be kinsman of Naomi’s dead husband Elimelech. This man is just doing his thing, blessing his servants, looking out for his business. But he is the instrument God uses to bless Ruth, who is the instrument God uses to bless Naomi. God uses people to bless others. Ruth and Boaz marry and from them Jesus descends.
SONG: HE STILL WALKS ON WATER
Is that coincidence or Providence? Man says it was coincidence Baby Moses floated where Pharaoh’s daughter was bathing. Just a coincidence she looked in the basket; when she saw a foreign baby that he would suddenly cry and she would love him. Pharaoh's daughter adopted little Moses and took him into the palace of the man who wanted him killed! Pharaoh tried to destroy Hebrew baby boys, but God said, “I'll have Pharaoh’s daughter raise this child. I'll have Pharaoh pay the nanny, pay his education, supply everything this baby needs. Moses will grow up in Pharaoh's own house!" Moses' real mother said, "Thank You, God, for saving my baby! I can’t imagine this is what You would do!"
God is leading; we just don’t see it. We’re so preoccupied, we can’t hear His still small voice. Bethlehem means “house of bread.” Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and laid in a manger, a feeding trough. He is the Bread of Life. That is God-incidence. Lloyd attends church with his loving wife Mary. I asked Lloyd how he happens to attend since he used to be a Jehovah’s Witness. Lloyd said he bought a book from the thrift store, entitled God’s Ten Percent. He first learned about tithe. Near the end, the book mentioned we give God the 7th day of our time in addition to 10% of our money. Lloyd found a church that worships on 7th day. He walked into church in middle of a service announcing, “I’m here to pay tithe.” We don’t know who donated that book to a thrift store. Maybe someone who moved away and couldn’t take all their books with them. But God knows.
If you run out of gasoline and need assistance, you never know if God will use your dilemma to help someone else. If you donate a book to a thrift store, you never know if God will use that book to bring a sincere man and his wife to church. But God knows. Sometimes in life, we think we’re adrift on the sea of life and we don’t matter. We think our life doesn’t make a difference. We think there really isn’t anyone in charge and whatever happens happens. But God knows the plans He has for you!
Ephesians 1:11, In whom we were assigned an inheritance, foreordained to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will. God does not have random whim, but infinite wisdom in His loving will. God knows your number of hairs. That attention to detail isn’t a God who leaves things up to chance. That attention to detail is NOT a God of coincidence.
SONG: HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW
Every snowflake, flash of lightning, every rainbow speaks to control of an all-knowing, ever present God. Isaiah 25:1, In perfect faithfulness You have done marvelous things, things planned long ago. Do you trust that God made you and wants you here? Psalm 100:3, Know that the Lord is God. He made us, and we belong to Him; we are His people. Love has advance planning. Parents plan for their baby’s nursery. God planned for your eternity!
Galatians 1:15, But when it pleased God, Who separated me from my mother's womb, He called me by His grace. This universe is not governed by chance. But Divine will doesn’t destroy our freedom. Divine providence enhances freedom. Some people think if they can't understand a thing, it must not be true! They deny God exists and works in the world because they don't understand how. Do you understand what is life? Yet you have life. How does your brain function? If you don’t understand the brain, does it mean it can’t function? Alex Haley, the author of "Roots," had an unusual picture hanging on his office wall, a turtle on top of a fence post. When asked, "Why is that there?" Alex Haley said, "Every time I read my words and think they’re wonderful, I begin to feel proud of myself, so I look at the turtle on top the fence post and remember he didn’t get there on his own. Someone else lifted him."
Abraham sent his servant back to his homeland to find a wife for his son Isaac. Genesis 24: 15, Before Abraham’s servant had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was daughter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. What led Rebekah there at exact time when Abraham’s servant prayed for the right woman? Chance or Providence? Laban and Bethuel answered, "This is from the Lord; we can say nothing one way or the other.” God's will in life like finding the right spouse. Events which seem chance are really from God so they seal marriage contract. Rebekah was born in just the right family, arrived at the well just the right time, and her kindness led her to offer just the right thing, water the camels. She could’ve been married already, but it just so happened she was single, available. She was willing to leave family and home, go to a foreign land she didn’t know, become a stranger’s wife. Obviously she trusted God, just like Abraham when he left home!
Acts 8:26-40, an angel told Philip to go south along a desert road. Philip saw an Ethiopian Eunuch of great authority reading Isaiah. It was normal to read aloud. Philip ran to the Eunuch and asked if he understood. Eunuch needed him to explain. Philip explained gospel from Isaiah. People you meet and people that meet you are due to direction of the Holy Spirit, meeting the right person at the right time. You met people and affected their life; people met you and made a difference in your life. When we touch others' lives, those moments are from God.
“Take control of your life!” says the world. How much do we really control? Tomorrow? So what if only way to fulfill your life purpose, is to let God lead? Human beings can’t understand “the scheme of things.” Ecclesiastes 7:25, So I turned my mind to understand, investigate and search out wisdom and scheme of things to understand stupidity of wickedness and madness of folly. Says the Teacher, "This is what I discovered. Adding one thing to another to discover scheme of things-This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.” Wisest man Solomon didn’t see the full pattern. We see through a glass darkly. Psalm 33:11, But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, purposes of His heart through all generations.
We try to control each event, which leads to anxiety. Accept the unexpected. Sun will rise tomorrow; seasons proceed. Yet life isn’t predictable. When we look back, we come to appreciate how God led us all the way. We see how things were connected, how one thing led to another, how God was in charge, what God intended. If we fear uncertainty of earth’s future, God sees the future though we only see present. One day we discover He guided us on paths far too complex for us to see at the time. One day His leading will become clear. But along the way, we discover more of His love, His power, His grace and His wisdom in all events of our lives.
SONG: GOD’S ALREADY THERE