Victory Inner-city Ministries Weblog

Many lessons cannot be learned in a book or even by trying to learn them.  There are things that we discover in the journey – seemingly accidentally on purpose.  Many lessons are a lot like looking at a faint star.  If you try to look right at it, you can’t see it.  If you focus on it, it doesn’t come into view.  Only when you look away, can you see it.  When you are searching for that lost article, you can never seem to find it, but instead you find a whole set of something else that you weren’t looking for.  As you are looking for the “something,” the “something else” sneaks up and surprises you.  If you have your focus set broad enough to include those surprises, you can do a lot of living when you aren’t really meaning to.  When you are open to the joy of serendipity, life means so much more. 

It is not that you were not meant to find what you were looking for, but it may not have been what was on The Agenda for that day.  But when you miss both the forest and the trees because you can’t get past what was supposed to be, you miss more than just shrubbery and foliage.  Life passes you by.  You see, life is more than a series of newspaper articles, day timer entries, and stock quotes.  It is a patchwork quilt of people, places, things and ideas stitched together by God himself.

I hadn’t gone to the conference to meet Betty Spragins.  I thought I was at the training seminar to learn about Permanent Supportive Housing and other homeless issues.  As the speakers droned on and on, my mind wandered further and further.  The conference was a complete waste of my time, but I was there and determined to make the most of it.  We had 30 seconds to introduce ourselves and share what we do.  I shared.  Betty heard, and the rest is history.  She was fascinated by our ministry, and a relationship sprang up immediately.  It was Betty that introduced me to Tim Shapiro at the Center for Congregations.  Since then, Tim and the Center have been an invaluable resource, as well as a source of other relationships that are still growing.  Like the pebble in the pond, it keeps expanding, rippling outward.

So the next time that you are stuck in a line at the store, riding the elevator to the 24^th floor, or going to a specialist for tests that will cost you more than you think you can afford – STOP, look, and listen.  All things work together for good.  The stops as well as the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.  Since this is no accident, learn to seize the moment.  Find the connection, develop the friendship, make the contact, learn the lesson, read the article, reflect in the quiet moment, and maybe, just maybe someday we’ll all understand why.