Coincidence? Maybe not…

Have you ever taken the time to sit and consider just how God puts all the puzzle pieces of your life together, like a master chef assembling a five star meal? From sayings like “God never wastes a hurt” to “each step you took led you to now”, our lives are full of clichés about this, but how often do we really stop and consider it?

I've been contemplating it a lot over the last year. Once we left our home in Arizona, there was a tangible pull to discover God’s path for my life. Now, I definitely feel I’ve found it, but I wonder how many of you either haven’t found it yet, or worse, haven’t even started looking.

Like the aforementioned meal, a Godly life requires a lot of ingredients that might seem foreign to one another. These ingredients must be prepared in the right manner, and added at just the right time, or the whole meal is ruined.

It’s the same with our lives, but thankfully God is the one in our kitchen.

However, if we’re not paying attention, we can miss out on the meal he’s preparing for us.

In my lifetime, I’ve been a musician, a mechanic and a professional writer among other things. With each one of these occupational hats came a unique set of training regimens, learned skills and enhanced talents. Let’s look at them for a moment.

Music brought with it the skill of pacing and timing. To write songs, I had to learn how to craft something sincere from nothing but a few thoughts and feelings, a song that engages the listener and evokes a gut-level response. I also had to learn how to create a set list and the importance of song placement on albums. Variation in pacing and intensity are key to a memorable record.

Working on cars as a mechanic teaches how important every part is, no matter how big or small. A car can’t operate as designed if any of the 15,000 parts are inoperative. As I went through business training for auto repair, I also learned about the communication of body language and how to read people’s physical behavior, tone of voice and facial expressions.

As a professional writer, I learned how to engage an audience, how to convey ideas without spoon-feeding the reader and how to assemble a compelling tale with tension, conflict, drama and resolution. And how best to communicate an idea verbally.

I’m acutely aware of the fact that all this really seems like a mismatched pile of odd skills, and to someone on the outside it might even appear like a lost soul searching for a goal…

For the last several years, I’ve felt a tug at my heart to enter ministry. I had no idea where that came from, as no one in my family was involved in ministry, in fact my mother and step-father are atheists.

At first I ignored this tug, but finally, last year I gave in and entered Seminary. My first class was Evangelism and mid-way through the course, I went on a Mission’s Trip where evangelism was a key to the Mission’s success. Coincidence? Maybe not…

I also felt a tug at my heart to start talking to my earthly father for the first time in my life. After speaking with him, he informed me that on his side of my family, there’s a host of Pastors, Preachers and Reverends. Was the tug at my heart to enter ministry a coincidence? Maybe not…

Last night I had the blessing of attending a class at church for volunteer teachers. The course, led by outstanding teacher and Eagle Brook Church pastor Jason Strand, delivered all sorts of great information on crafting messages for biblical teaching, the delivery of said messages and how to work with your audience to meet their needs.

To do this successfully, I’ll need to know pacing, timing, verbal communication, how to craft something sincere from nothing but a few thoughts and feelings, the importance of varying pace and intensity, how important every part is, the communication of body language and how to read people’s physical behavior, tone of voice and facial expressions, how to engage an audience, how to convey ideas without spoon-feeding the reader and how to assemble a compelling message with tension, conflict, drama and resolution. And how best to communicate my idea verbally.

Coincidence? Maybe not…

So, my question to you is, what’s God cooking in the kitchen of your life?

Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

If you're still looking for the path God has laid before you, a good resource you can access (for free) is LifeChurch's Chazown Experience.