When You Least Expect It

As my boys get older it is becoming harder and harder to make magical Christmas moments – the kind where they scream in delight, pixie dust and glitter is swirling, and time stands still.

This year we accomplished it – it just happened to be 2 weeks before Christmas! Last Sunday the boys were lounging around, trying to talk us into doing something fun. I was complaining about them watching too much football and embellishing a little about all I had to do that day. Then we asked if they’d like an early Christmas present…and what kid would say no to that?

But we did it! We pulled it off! They DID scream in delight - loudly! The pixie dust and glitter DID swirl! Time DID stand still, but just for a minute as the boys realized they were unwrapping tickets to that day’s Colts game! They sprinted upstairs to put on their Colt’s jerseys, we loaded up the car, and we hit the road!

The game was awesome, the experience all we’d hoped for, and the family bonding full-on.

The game ended and we left, having loved every minute of it.
That's when God showed up…

Let me set the scene: We are walking out of Lucas Oil Stadium with the rest of the 65,000 that were there – 65,000. It is chaotic. It is loud, really, really loud. Just outside the door you have to walk through a dark, echoing tunnel. In that tunnel are several guys playing drums, loudly. We are trying to talk about the game, not lose the boys, and hurry since it is cold. I can’t emphasize the noise & chaos enough.

I notice someone I know ahead of me to my left. I watch her. Then I turn my head to the right, make eye contact with the drumming guys and smile while thinking I should throw some money in the bucket by their feet.

Then I look straight ahead and stop dead in my tracks.

Straight in front of me and only a couple of feet from my face is a lady, older than I am. She looks me dead in the eye and here’s what happens next:
She says: Ma’am, do you have $25 so I can feed my kids?
I say: Yes, I do. I carry an envelope for this very purpose.
I lean in close and say: Tell me what you need.
She says: If I had $40 I could get enough food for the week.
I start to fumble in my messy purse, reaching for the envelope that I carry just for this very thing. It is so dark in the tunnel that I can barely see. My family is getting too far ahead of me…the tunnel is too loud – too many people rushing by us, yet time for this lady and me is irrelevant. I’m afraid I’m scaring her as I repeatedly yell to my family to “wait!”
Finally they stop, but are far ahead of me and really have no idea of what is going on.
She helps me hold my purse up so I can see.
I am completely calm and feel no fear.
I pull out a $50 bill.
Before handing it to her I ask: Do you know who this is from?
She answers: Jesus
I reply: Yes, it is and He wants you to know that He loves you.
I hand her the money and I start to cry.
She hugs me tight and says: Don’t cry. He blessed you so you could bless me. I love you.
I say: I love you, too, and I know you’ll be OK. I’ll be praying for you.
We part, I catch up with my family, and that was that.

A miracle right there in that tunnel.

She picked me out of 65,000 people because God nudged her that I was willing and prepared to meet her need. I responded because I was ready and am looking for those miracle encounters every single place I go.

You may think I’ve lost my mind. That’s OK with me.
You may think I'm looking for credit. I'm not. I share this with you, not for credit – for the only credit belongs to God. I share it to illustrate that God is alive and working and wants to do miraculous things at every turn, but we need to be willing to be his hands and feet. If you don’t believe me read, “You Were Born for This” by Bruce Wilkinson. It will change your life and the lives of those around you.

What’s funny is that I’d been hoping to be a miracle delivery agent for days, and every person whom I’d come across had caused me to question, “It is her?” “Is he the one?”, yet nothing - no nudges from God to act. And then on that day, when I was totally focused on my boys’ Christmas joy and pulling off that great Christmas surprise, God had an even bigger Christmas surprise in store for me.

I’ll never forget last Sunday’s events. It was a perfect day from start to finish – every last bit of it. God is crazy like that…just like we used to say in middle school, “When you least expect it...expect it!” It’s a craziness that is hard to explain, but I adore being part of it. My friend Philippe says, “It shouldn’t seem crazy…that’s just how The Kingdom works!” And Philippe is right!

So this Christmas I challenge you to embrace the craziness of an active, living Kingdom of God and be ready to be part of miracles wherever you go!

Question: Do you believe that God delivers miracles today and wants our help in making them happen?

40 and ????

Well, I’m almost a week in. The big 4-0 came and went last Sunday and the world did not stop turning. It’s not like I’m depressed or stressed or on the verge of a mid-life crises (though I can’t be sure…).

These questions loom for me:
40 and fabulous…or frumpy?
40 and fearless…or frightened?
40 and have it all figured out…or full of it (!) ?

Maybe I’ll never know. And maybe I’m a little of each of those, depending on the moment, depending on the day.
I really hope that at age 40 I am not at the half-way point, but that is not for me to know, and I think this is the underlying reality check that causes people to stop in their tracks at these milestone birthdays and contemplate:
What did I do in the first 40 years that really matters, and what had I better get moving on starting today, right now?

In some ways I think I’ve done OK.
Yet in some ways I think I have not begun to scratch the surface of becoming who God intends for me to be.
And I wonder…is that my fault, did I stunt my own progress? Or did God not only plot my path, but also my days in which to land at each marker?

I realize the introspective nature of these questions, even the heaviness at times, but if we don’t ask, evaluate, and analyze how will we have any sense of the continuum on which we travel?

In the first 40 years I know that I have done some important things.
I also did some stupid stuff.
And I literally thank God that it’s not too late to have some great big plans for the next 40 years…to make sure that the answers ARE fabulous, fearless, and figured out, to teach some more kids to read, bring some people to Jesus, change some lives, give away thousands (let’s get crazy and say millions here, God!), raise faithful boys who live out their passions and dreams, grow old with my soul mate, embrace my friends, inspire others, shake the system & rock the boat, leave a legacy, …and change the world.

Age has no relevance for God.
Look at Abraham and Sarah and Noah.
(Side bar: Hey God, by the way, it is A-OK if we skip the childbearing at 90 business! I can NOT imagine the stretch marks from that! Whew!)
Amazing things were done to further the Kingdom of God, things that we still very much feel the ripple effect of today, by them and many more.

I just want to make sure that in the next 40 years (and beyond), everyone I come in contact with is better for having known me, and that I am the hands and feet of Jesus in my community, the face of Jesus in the crowd every single chance I get.

Gotta go! The clock is ticking, and I have to do nothing short of changing the world for the Kingdom of God!

Question: What will YOU do in the next 40 years to change the world for the Kingdom of God?

Shock & Awe

I love to shock people.

Not in the “I just went and had my body completely pierced and sleeved” kind of way…
More in the “you think you have me totally figured out and you so do not, mister” kind of way.

I’ve been told I am a little high maintenance. A little complicated. A tough nut to crack.
Fine by me.
How boring would life be if we were each a Myers-Briggs ESFP? I enjoy being a complex INTJ. It is, after all, who God made me to be…for a reason. And if you know anything about Myers-Briggs and those 16 personality types, you know that my personality isn’t one known for enjoying shock value.

I am absolutely too straight-laced. Therefore, people don’t think I’m funny, so I love to surprise with an off-the-cuff funny remark.

I am extremely opinionated. I keep those opinions to myself a lot of the time so as not to cause too much eyebrow raising, but sometimes I love to listen long and hard, saying nothing, as though I might not care…or know…only to interject my opinion at the perfect moment backed by cold, hard fact.

I love to be an original and despise being copied. Just when someone thinks they have me figured out, I love to do something completely to the contrary just to keep them guessing. (For this I probably do need counseling, referrals welcome…)

But here’s my favorite: I love to shock people with the truth of Jesus, with the love of Jesus, with the heart of Jesus, and when they least expect it.

I love to shock people by doing things that are so far outside the lines of the secular world in which we live that the non-believer, or even the believer, on the receiving end is so stunned they don’t know how to respond.

Just today I had to call a company about a problem and speak to the customer service rep. I was really concerned about a breech of confidential information and the woman took care of it quickly and put my mind at ease. As we hung up I said, “You have no idea how you have helped me today. I hope God blesses you in return for how you have blessed me.”
Ya cudda heard a pin drop….
“Um, wow…thank you so much, ma’am!” was her response. Clearly she doesn’t get much of that blessing stuff at her job.
Jesus meets customer service…

A few days ago I had to call a credit card company that was trying to send me a card & all I had to do was activate it, except that I didn’t want it. I realized that they had us listed as a pending application, which “Mr. Chad McCool Envelope System” did not want on his credit. Good little Discover Card worker that she was just really wanted me to go ahead and open that account in case I ever needed it…even though I was telling her I didn’t need or want it.
I had no choice but to pull out the shock and awe!
Oh, to have seen her reaction would have been priceless when I said, “Well, we are trying hard to live by the rules of Kingdom Finance and part of that for us is following the methods of Dave Ramsey. We’re working hard to pay off all of our credit card debt and cut up our cards (!), and any other debt, so we can even start to work on the overwhelming task of paying off our mortgage in short order. It’s really going to take a lot of hard work and discipline to do all of that and continue to give like we want to. I know that your job is to extend credit, but I just really feel God laying it on my heart to be strict in this.” She laughed at me. (Hey, it ain’t the first time…and it won’t be the last!) Then she told me that she’s watched Dave Ramsey on TV a couple of times. I thanked her for helping me make sure that card didn’t become active and told her that God would bless her for helping me stay on track. I could feel the shock and awe reverberating through the phone line!
Jesus meets 1-800-discover.


Recently I made a call to a utility company. I explained that I bypassed all of the automated choices because none applied. I had to talk to a real person. I explained that I was calling so that I could pay both the current bill and the overdue bill of a family whom I knew could not pay their own. At first the man on the other end could not even understand what I was trying to do. He kept asking me who I was with, what company I was from. I kept responding with varying versions of “I’m not with any company. I’m one of a really small group of people who likes to go around paying other people’s bills.”
When he still seemed to have a bad case of shock and awe, I finally said, “I’m with Jesus.”
He very slowly answered, “We don’t get a lot of that.”
Jesus meets the utility company guy.

I hope that day that I was the vehicle for God to move for that family. I also hope I was a witness to Jesus being alive and active in this world to the guy on the other end of the phone. Very powerful stuff if I was able to do both.

Now these are some of those stories that I’ve mentioned I hesitate to share, but my dear friend Julie has convinced me that sharing it is where the real leadership is.

But here’s what you absolutely must know:
This is not about me! This is about God. Focus on God. Shock and Awe for God, by God, because of God. And it has nothing to do with me other than the fact that I am daily trying to be His hands and feet out there in my very own community, directly impacting one life at a time.

Jesus will show up anywhere that you take Him.
Oh, I know He can get there on His own, but He’s waiting to see how we’ll pack him up and carry Him with us everywhere we go.
For years I’ve been praying the prayer of Jabez. My territory IS being enlarged. But the world is full of noise and distraction and sometimes it takes more than a whisper to get people’s attention.
Sometimes it takes full-scale warfare.

Sometimes it takes shock and awe to shake the system, to sufficiently rock the boat…
…but WOW, the stories…the power of God in it…the legacy…the eternal significance…

WOW!

Question: Where have you taken Jesus today? How have you shocked and awed in His name?

Vera

I had to go to the Wal-Mart Vision Center today. I was already not thrilled to be going there because a.) I had a mile-long list of other stuff I needed to do today, and b.) I’d already been there twice and couldn’t get someone to understand what I needed/wanted (or I couldn’t articulate it so that they could).

Already not excited to be going there, my less than stellar attitude collided with complete impatience when my friend and partner in rescuing the poor and down-trodden called to say we should meet for lunch. “I can’t…I’m at the Wal-Mart Vision Center”, I explained. Her response was “that’s a pretty darn good thing, cause I’m on my way to Wal-Mart to buy shampoo right now!”

She’s a spontaneous sort of gal…I have a lot to learn about that…so out the window went the to-do list for today, but based on a sermon a few weeks ago, I thought that God would be proud if I could be a little less rigid in the name of authentic relationships.

Little did either of us know what He had planned for us today…

With no one really understanding my needs yet in the vision center I was forced to wait for no reason, but just listen to what God did during that wait time:
**My friend paid for her stuff and came and sat with me.

**We watched a lady, who maybe wasn’t the most fashion-forward, try on some super-cool and ultra-funky glasses…her whole face lit up. Her confidence grew. She knew her cool factor rose about 50 million points in that moment. We both told her she HAD to get them. Then we eavesdropped while the worker told her the price and we prayed (yes, I do mean literally) that she’d be able to buy them. I was prepared to step in if need be. Every person deserves to feel good about herself.

**Everyone in the whole joint looked grumpy…now I wasn’t too thrilled about being there myself at first, but once you’re there you have a choice to make: suck it up and make the best of it, or wallow in it. I choose the first one…AND I’m pretty much going to make you go to that happy place with me…Your light (or darkness) can absolutely change an entire room. (Google “Fish” by Lundin, Paul, & Christensen if you need a little help with that!!) So….friend and I started talking to the people around us, talking a little louder, talking with a little more animation, talking with a little more laughter. And the whole room changed. (This little light of mine…I’m gonna let it shine…)

**As they called me back I thought, “that wait wasn’t so long”…(because I changed!)

**The doctor, a different one than last time, not only listened, but solved my issue quickly (LOVE that!). Upon leaving, smiling broadly, I said, “Thanks so much for really listening to me! I truly felt heard…and that was the kind of customer service I was looking for.” …Compliments are meant to be spoken…

AND here’s the real kicker:

**My friend struck up a conversation with the “Have A Nice Day” lady on the way out (I don’t think you can call her a greeter when she’s at the exit saying goodbye…). Her name is Vera. We've never met this woman, mind you. She was a sweet, darling, little old thing…maybe in her late 70’s. As we spoke with her, really listening…so she would feel heard…we learned that she loved her job at Wal-Mart. She never wanted to quit, but she might have to quit because she can no longer see to drive. She told us that she loved working, and she had just put her dog of fourteen years down and she cried every day about it (talk about speaking straight to my very own heart!). She told us that if she couldn’t come there to work she’d be so lonely and would probably “sit down and die”.

WOW!

You can argue with me six ways from Sunday on whether or not God hangs out at Wal-Mart, but you can never convince me that the two of us were not supposed to talk to this woman.

In the course of our short conversation with her, we’d arranged transportation to and from work starting next week if it turned out that she really did need it. We’d proved someone cares. We’d validated her work ethic. We’d shown her friendship. We’d let her know that age is just a number and that no one has to “sit down and die” if he or she still has the desire to make a difference & spread a little joy! And we’d witnessed about Jesus in Wal-Mart.

Jesus. In Wal-Mart.

WOW!

And we left with tears in our eye, knowing that He orchestrated the whole darn thing for the good of those that love Him, for the opportunity to be presented, to see what we’d do in response, to make available to Vera His hands and feet.

I have many stories like this. I’ve hesitated to share many, believing that my works should be anonymous. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe if we all talked a little more, supported each other a little more in these kinds of efforts, challenged each other a little more, the world would be a different place.

Keep your eyes and ears open…the Veras are everywhere and God is just waiting to see what we'll do!

Question: What can you do today to witness, to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to an unlikely person in an unlikely place?