So Random! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Random Events?

I needed to get an early start to the day.  I woke up five minutes before the alarm.  Before departure there was my physical therapy routine for my injured knee, shower and shave, breakfast, conversation around the table.  I wanted to get away by 7:00.  The conference I was to attend started at 8:30.  I had never been to this location in the research triangle.  I needed to consider morning traffic, potential accidents and all the rest.
While traffic was lighter than I anticipated, some places I was a bit over the speed limit of 70 and other places I was going 35 mph in a 70 zone.  But now here I was pulling into my destination having been unsure of which building was the correct one.  There were several parking lots and I didn’t know which one to use.
I pulled into a parking lot with only one car at the far end.  I parked close to the machine which would issue the parking permit for the allotted time of the meeting I was to attend all day.
At the very moment, to the second, I finished paying parking and received my ticket, I saw the occupants of the other car walking up.  I recognized them as three of the leaders for the days’ workshop.
Reflecting on this later, I became lost in wonder.
For me the morning was full of all those ‘random’ events of the morning routine.
Yet in the moment I saw those leaders arrive at the precise second I was ready to leave the parking lot, I became aware of planning far beyond my petty human ability.  In the midst of my morning I became aware of a great Hand present, guiding my path in a magnificent way. Along my way, the events had seemed random.  But to the One who has promised, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) nothing had been random.
How foolish we are not to trust our hopes, dreams, and our very life to this amazing, capable, powerful, caring, loving, thoughtful, planning God!