I’ve been reading a book lately that was given to me by a friend and it’s titled “When God Winks at You”. It’s a collection of real-life stories about how God speaks to all of us through the power of coincidence. I’ve really enjoyed it thus far and am further convinced that many of the things we often write off in this world as simply coincidences could actually be God blessing us. And what’s ironic is that my partner and I personally had one of our own experiences with this just over a week ago.
It all began with two tickets my sister had gifted us this Christmas to see Jeff Dunham who was coming to Detroit in late January. If you don’t know who he is, he’s a pretty well-known and very funny ventriloquist. Anyway, as the date of the show loomed closer, we grew more excited. But then my partner suddenly got a job with the postal service and didn’t know whether his schedule was going to conflict with the event or not. When he began his first day, six from the date of the show, he completely forgot to let them know of this prior engagement. Unfortunately, much to his dismay, during the next day’s class, he was assigned to shadow someone on their existing mail route on the very day of the performance. When he inquired on when that work day would end, he discovered it would be too late for him to make the show. I must admit, when I found out about this that evening, I was livid and didn’t do a very good job handling it at all. In fact, I pretty much threw a temper tantrum that I’m not very proud of. By the time I finally calmed down, I began to think of someone else I could ask to go with me, but I also decided to do something else in the meantime, and that was to start praying to God to provide a way for Chris to still go with me. With the performance being only four days away at this point, I didn’t have much hope of it happening though.
But then something quite interesting happened. Chris was in one of his training classes when he randomly befriended another new postal worker who just so happened to be someone that grew up in his neighborhood and whose mother had been great friends with his own. As they proceeded to get to know each other, they also discovered they had both been assigned the same postal route. When Chris inquired as to when she was doing her shadowing, it was two days after his. He then told her about his schedule conflict and how he was going to probably miss the event when she said she’d be willing to switch with him. Except when Chris asked their teacher for permission to do this, he was subsequently turned down with an answer that basically said their shadowing assignments were set in stone. Yet, with one final hope, Chris opted to go the very next day to the actual post office where their new assignments were and ask the manager directly for permission. When he came home later that day, I must say, it didn’t sound like that had gone over so well. Even so, I prayed again and asked God to make the decision and I’d accept the answer. And wouldn’t you know, the next day, less than 24 hours from the start of the Jeff Dunham show, Chris received a phone call that gave him the approval to switch.
While this might seem like a trite thing to you, maybe quickly being written off as a coincidence like so many things can often be, look at the number of “coincidences” that had to happen to make this possible:
- I was given a book about how God speaks directly to people through the power of coincidence less than a week prior to the event.
- Chris made one new friend during his first week of postal training who just so happened to be connected to his family and grew up in the same neighborhood as he.
- Chris’s new friend was the only one assigned to the same route as he in their 18-person class.
- The day that Chris’s new friend was assigned to shadow was actually Chris’s day off and vice versa for her
- Neither had any scheduled conflicts with each other’s days of shadowing.
- Both were willing to switch with each other (which is something many frequently don’t like to do these days with fellow co-workers on their days off).
So, are all these things merely coincidences that allowed for this to happen? Are they all part of some strange sort of randomness of the Universe that occasionally blesses people along the way? Or, does God truly exist and operate on a level that is far beyond anything we could ever imagine, placing the right people, in the right places, at the right times, all to make the necessary things happen that are meant to happen for God’s glory?
I leave you to come up with your own answer.
As for me, I already have my answer and have written today’s article as a personal thank you to God for winking at me through the power of coincidences and reminding me that He’s always working on my behalf. It just may not look like anything my small ego could ever come up with…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
