Coincidence Or Providence?

I took a bag out to the trash this morning and found that all our trash cans were full. All five. Three of the 55 gallon variety, with their lids off,  and two others, slightly smaller and never having lids since we moved here. It was curious. We left town a week ago Sunday and our trash usually gets picked up Tuesday and Friday. Where did all this trash come from while we were out of town? Then I remembered that the church gym had been rented twice while we were away. The groups usually take away their own trash but one of them must have left theirs in our cans instead. Recently the transfer station closed their 24 hour access and so I can understand why the choice between leaving the trash in the back of a pickup overnight, easy picking for crows and loose dogs, and leaving it in the cage and cans at church would be a no-brainer.

When I saw how full the cans were and thought about our garbage  pickup being at least a day away, given that the garbage crews would have more to pickup after a holiday weekend, I figured that the best thing to do would be to load the garbage in the Pastormobile and take it to the transfer station myself. An hour or so later, when I knew the post office would be open and I could pick up the package waiting for us there, I got out the Pastormobile and loaded the garbage.

Picking up garbage in Dulce is an old-school process. Most of the work is done by crews of 2-4 people, driving a crew cab pickup that has been modified with a cage on the back. The crew gets out of the truck, picks the bags up from the cans, heaves then over the top of the cage, and then moves on to the next house. They have a hard and dirty job, and so I try not to make the bags too heavy. As I loaded the Pastormobile some of the bags were very heavy. Because of all the absent lids and the recent snow a number of bags were also frozen to the cans and to each other. I was glad to have a pair of work gloves in the Pastormobile as I got things loose and loaded. Then it was off to the transfer station.

Drove to the main building and backed into the bay with a chute down to a waiting dumpster. Got out of the car to sign-in and a man came out to help me unload. It was a man I haven’t seen for quite a while, the better part of a year, but someone I had been hoping to run into. Late this summer he had called the house several times, leaving me a message and asking for a call back to his number. Unfortunately I neither had his number, nor does our phone give numbers on incoming calls. Once I asked a husband and wife if they knew where I might find him. Their response was along the lines of "We don’t run with that kind of crowd."

The man and I talked briefly, including his saying that "I need to get my life turned around." I know parts of his story and those words were music to my ears. He asked how long I was planning to stay as the pastor in Dulce. That was a surprise, as we met shortly after arriving in Dulce in 2013. I told him I'm not planning to go anywhere in the next year. He also said he'd be in church this coming Sunday. I hear that a lot, often without follow through. But I know that God acts powerfully in single moments, and perhaps this coming Sunday will be one of those moments.  

Or perhaps this morning was one of those moments. I could look at the various things I wrote about my morning and how they brought me face-to-face with a friend who needed some encouragement, and chalk it all up to coincidence. Nothing more than a series of random events coming together in one event that from my point-of-view seemed to have meaning.

But coincidence denies the existence and work in the world of an active and personal God. Coincidence is how the god Baal works as his prophets have their showdown with Elijah in 1 Kings 18. Yeah, he's a god, but he isn't always available, or very interested, in what is going on down on earth, even among the people who worship him.

The God of the Bible is a God of providence. He know all things and has a purpose for all things. He coordinates even minor details, even unlikely events, to serve his purposes. He reveals his purposes on his timing. His eye is never off of those children who love him, even when they are doing things that are against the very faith they profess. The God of providence is the God Elijah worships, and Elijah sees him coming through, again and again and again.

The God of providence is the God of the Old and New Testaments, the God who has drawn me to himself and the God whom I pray is at work in my friend's life. May you see him working in your life, especially in those seemingly random, seemingly coincidental moments. When it comes to God, there are no coincidences.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.