Hope Without Limits

It’s been a very interesting 48 hours.  Part of my job is to plan and coordinate events.  So, generally the concensus is, it’s better when things turn out as planned. 😉

I’m discovering that is not necessarily so.

The night before I left, my husband prayed for me that I would “recognize and remember God is in charge, even when it doesn’t look like He is”.   You know the verse which tells us the Holy Spirit will help us to pray (Romans 8:26) … well He was definitely helping my husband at that moment!

Nothing has turned out as planned.  But, everything has been supplied.

• The air transportation I had originally arranged was canceled due to mechanical difficulties.  My Heavenly Father provided 9 commercial, business class, airline tickets on the same flight within 3 hours of take-off and ground transportation waiting for us at our changed arrival city to drive us the last 2.5 hours.
• Even with all the travel changes, our group of 35 people sat down to dinner only 30 minutes late with no one taking for granted being together.
• The projector for the presentations that wouldn’t work was quickly replaced.
• The sunny skies have instead been torrential downpours.  (Before you read the next sentence, you have full permission to laugh at me!)  I’ve discovered I’m not responsible for the weather. 🙂 .  No, seriously. What a relief!   Until it didn’t happen, I didn’t realize I was expecting to hear many complaints and to be asked to solve them.  No one has complained to me, instead everyone has accepted the weather for what it is and the staff at the spa at our facility has worked to increase staffing to accommodate the increase in their business!
• The dinner planned for on the beach under the stars has had to be moved inside to a conference room. The catering and audio visual team have exercised their creativity and generosity to still make it an incredibly lovely evening.
• The golf tournament had to be canceled due to weather conditions.  The course did not charge any penalty.

And there is still 36 hours to go!  I think I may dub this meeting as the “favor” meeting.

What do I mean by that?

This Bill Johnson quote explains it the most succinctly “We have been given favor because it empowers us to serve more effectively.”

That is exactly what I have experienced.  God’s favor touching everything to bless both me and the people around me.

One of my group asked me about all the travel difficulties that transpired yesterday.  My response was “I have a choice how I look at it.  I could look at as a terrible day, or I could look at it as a miraculous day.  I choose miraculous.”  They agreed with me!

My prayer for you is that wherever your life doesn’t look like what you planned that you would be flexible and make the choice to look for God’s favor in order to position yourself to receive and experience God’s favor both to supply your need and to help you to be able to see that God is still in charge, even when it doesn’t look like He’s in charge.  Now that is unconditional hope!