Today's Devotional

December 27, 2002

Subject:  Seeing What God Sees

Acts 26:19 - "Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:"

Oftentimes we start out in God's direction, but lose our focus or give up on the plan that God has.  Sometimes it's just a simple matter of seeing with our own eyes and not with God's.  Such was my case for Christmas dinner on Wednesday night.  For a year and a half, I've been praying for the salvation of my coworkers.  A few weeks back, one of them invited me for Christmas dinner.  Of course, I was not into that.  I figured, hey, it's Christmas.  I can just relax at home.  However, I really didn't have a good excuse to say no and so I accepted.  Many times prior to the actual date, and even the day of, I contemplated cancellation.  It snowed vigorously the night before - a perfect excuse, yet for some reason, I couldn't use it.  Then on the way there, I had a blowout of one of my tires.  Now, I figured, I can just turn around and go home.  Still I was compelled to go.  In the back of my mind, I kept thinking, well perhaps something good will come out of this.

I must say that it turned out to be quite a delightful evening and I was showered with gifts as I left to come home.  The most fascinating part of the adventure was a discussion that we were able to enter into with the family I was visiting on "being a Christian."  As the mother of the home looked at my cross necklace, she asked, "are you really religious?"  What a great conversation starter.  The mother and I instantly bonded and talked about our love for Christ in front of them all.  The best part of it was that it was my coworker's mom with whom I bonded.  I was pumped.  The mom went on to ask me if I had been witnessing to the coworker and begged that I stay on her.

When we don't see what could possibly happen in a situation, we need to take a more heavenly view and see what God sees.  I saw a wasted Christmas evening and God saw a perfect opportunity to show himself.  While I could have turned around at many points, it was His calling that kept me "obedient unto the heavenly vision."

Carlen