The last several weeks have been filled with some very cool “God’s Timing” moments.  Things that happened that it was just so evident that God was orchestrating that exact circumstance for that exact moment.  For instance, I wrote about Brandon in Pine, AZ, who just happened to be pulling into the library at the exact time we were stopping in to ask about a church.  Then last week it was just so obvious to me that Sitka, Alaska was to be the place that our team from Dallas, Oregon should go.  However, the pieces did not fit and the day after they said, “not this year,” I heard back from Haines, Alaska who had not gotten back to me in three weeks.  Their leadership voted unanimously to have the team from Dallas!  God’s timing is perfect.

Well, yesterday He did it again. As I was listening to the Podcast of the sermon I missed last Sunday and after a much-needed 11 mile bike-ride while I was still cooling down, I thought I’d stop the procrastination and pull out our old lawnmower and begin the yard work for the year.  Side-note: our lawn mower is old.  It was old (used) when we received it in 1999. I had a hard time starting it this year and when it finally did start it would only go for about 30 seconds.  So, needless to say, 15 minutes into my lawn-mowing experience the front lawn was only 1/3 done.  It looked horrible.  As Pastor John was preaching through my earbuds and as the lawnmower was sputtering I was thinking about how long this would take with the engine lasting about 5-6 seconds each time I started it now…

…John, in his sermon, was talking about being Jesus in our world.  He literally had just introduced the point “share the Gospel” and was talking about our unsaved family, coworkers and our neighbors.

Over the light hacking of the mower and the proclamations of John I heard, “Hey, let me know if you need to borrow mine!”

My neighbor from across the street and a few doors down was inviting me to borrow his mower.  I had never met, nor seen the man.  However, this was a loud shout from God, not just a invite from a neighbor.

I love God’s timing.  Elisabeth and I had committed ourselves to this being the year we really invested in getting to know our neighbors.  We’ve seen some progress this year, but this was an unexpected blessing.  I did borrow my neighbor’s mower, and way more important than the lawn getting mowed was the foundation of relationship we now have through the couple of conversations we had before and after the mowing.

We left the conversation with the hope of doing a barbecue together soon!

Jesus is Lord of time!  He knew I’d be listing to that sermon at that time.  He knew our cruddy ol’ mower would sputter at that time and he  Thank you Lord for your timing!

Grace,

Brian