I applied at PF Chang’s Thursday. For any job they have. That’s when I knew I’m getting desperate for another job. I’m now applying for work I said I never wanted to do. And I’m more than willing to do it. Well, okay, not more than willing, but willing.

It occurred to me that morning morning, on my way to work, that I had underestimated the cost of my newly acquired health insurance. A mild panic began stirring in the pit of my stomach, and I ran through every scripture about God’s faithful provision of needs I could think of on my way to work.

See, my insurance from the IMB finally ran out, so now I have insurance through my temp agency. It’s the most expensive insurance I’ve ever seen. The company "contributes" a set amount (about $2) toward the insurance per hour I work, which doesn’t eliminate the cost, but does help some. I had calculated my payment based on working 30 hours a week. Now that I’m down to 20, the amount I pay goes up. Significantly.

I’ve been listening to a cd of a talk Erwin gave at Christmas (thanks Ron and Lynn for the gift!!) and it in he points out that God is at work not only in the small things in our lives, but cosmically as well. God uses the Herods and — might I even say the Bin Ladens, Bushes and Kerrys — and the other "historic", epic-size things in our lives to advance His purpose for our lives. That’s why Luke begins the story of Jesus by talking about Herod, because He was part of the story. God used the real-time politics and leaders to advance His purposes…"God works in real time. There is nothing that happens in history that God doesn’t use in some way to accomplish His purpose."

He went on to talk about how we often segment our lives, our God-life over here and our everyday-life over there…. and the two never really come together….

"…What we haven’t yet learned to do is see life in a more organic fashion. When you begin to live in intimate relationship with God you start to see the fingerprints of God in everything that’s happening around you… You’re unable to divide between God stuff and non-God stuff…. because you understand that everything connected to your life is connected in some way to God. Even the Herods. Even the Roman Empires, who would not even acknowledge God… He has an amazing way to use [them] as material to advance your life in His purpose. God acts in real time.

It was so encouraging to hear that! Not just for the obvious reason that God is working in real time in and through all the events of my life right now. But also because for quite a long time I’ve been convinced I see God’s fingerprints all over events, both international and in my own sphere of life. People have often looked at me like I was mad — or headed that direction — when I would voice how I could see God’s fingerprints on things. As if by seeing God’s fingerprints I was "blaming" God for the event, or "praising" Him for it. It was neither. It was just that I saw Him in the midst of it. I could see HIm working and moving and acting…

Like with the deaths of my parents. So many things went wrong all at once. Yet every time I look at that time, even as I was going through it in real time, I could see God’s fingerprints all over it. I don’t always see why or how or what He was working toward… I don’t know if I ever will. Even when I get to heaven the answer may still be beyond my capacity to comprehend. But I know He was all over that time. I can see His fingerprints, His imprint, all over it.

So many times in my life this has been the case. It was so wonderful to hear a leader, my pastor no less (and yes, I still consider Erwin my pastor, even though I’m in Nashville…), state that I’m not crazy for what I’ve been seeing.

Back to the cd for a moment… Erwin goes on to say, "there’s nothing random or arbitrary with God." He points out that Zechariah was in the temple that day by what most would call accident. The priests drew lots and Zechariah got the "short end", so to speak. He went about his routine. There was nothing extraordinary or unique about what he was doing. And that’s when he meets God. God acted,

"because God loves to act in the unexpected."

As I listened to this for the first time last Wednesday, I heard God whisper that He is working in this crazy financial/job thing currently going on in my life. I felt a peace come over me, a sense that God’s Spirit was pressing in on me more intensely at that moment. As if He wanted me to really pay attention and get it this time….

There is nothing random or arbitrary in the life of a follower of Christ. There are no accidents, even though it seems we got something by the "luck of the draw." It just ain’t so. God is working. God is acting. Cosmically. In Real Time. And in the  Unexpected.

Do you realize how amazingly favored we are? The God of all creation steps into our lives on a daily basis, He longs to do unique, wild things in our lives. He longs to fill us with a deep, abiding joy — not the loud, excited kind but the quiet, profound kind that roots itself deep in your soul. He acts in real time, in the ordinary, routine events of our lives — like finances and jobs. He steps in and does something wild.

And we, in our deep cynicism, don’t believe. We find ourselves silent, like Zechariah.