An old friend of mine reached out this past eventful weekend to inform me of his new life with his new wife - third marriage to be exact. During the conversation, which lasted about an hour, he made statements like "...being at the right place at the right time." His claim was that God finally gave him the wife that he has been looking for. She is almost 20 years younger and they met at her former place of work. From my knowledge, weight gain and looks played a significant role in his previous divorces. The right place he was referring to is an adult (strip) club and the right time was about him making a last minute decision to stop there on his way home from a National Football League (NFL) game. One thing led to another a few months later and they became a couple.
Even when I sought his permission to one day express my thought on this issue as I clearly made known to him, he agreed but giggled and said: "...cut me a slack bro..." I told him that I'm not God so I don't have the power to "cut slacks" because he did nothing wrong against me. I hope someone will be generous enough to show me the light when I blindly jump into danger zone. I'm not the one to disparage someone's character based on a single event or action in their life because we all know that good people make bad choices. This doesn't mean we get to condone such actions either. Also, it is definitely not the first time I've heard people bring God into a similar situation, which is the reason for this quick piece. Sometimes we bring God's name into situations like this to justify our ill-advised actions. I'll recommend we ask ourselves next time we say "right place and right time" if the actions involved is godly.
Sometimes we push the phrase "right place at the right time" so far out to make it sound like God is a puppet master pulling strings left and right to devoid us of freewill. When it comes to advancing God's agenda, the right place is always where ever you find yourself and the right time is always right NOW (Matthew 28:18-20). Most importantly, the action has to be in accordance with His will and not our selfish desires. Does God place us in a specific situation at a particular time to make a change or a difference? Believing YES or NO is not going to send you to heaven or hell, as long as you get the job done and give Him glory and credit for His goodness. You can argue "yes" simply based on selected events that stands out in your life or you can simply argue "no" by saying God put us on this earth for a reason (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14). Your job is to make a positive difference as your journey through life.We are obviously not in Mars or Jupiter so moving around this earth can be broad or specific, depending on your take. Rather than looking for a specific event to call right place or right time in God's name based on your human opinion, why not just accept that we are in this world for a reason, which is to fear God and keep His commands. This is not BREAKING NEWS and God is not a puppet master. God is alive and well. He remains on His throne but only communicates to us through His word - the Bible. The days of sending Moses to Pharaoh (Exodus 3:14); Ananias to Paul (Acts 9::10-19); Peter to Cornelius (Acts 10 & 11); Jonah to Nineveh (Jonah 3:1) etc. is over. Those events led us to where we are today. These are the last days, which is also referred to as the Christian age or dispensation (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17). There's nothing else to know or expect that has not been revealed because ALL that we need to know is written down for us.
Can God still do something similar today if it is His will? - Yes.
Knowing that it's not part of His REVEALED plan to do so, should we wait around for a "sign"? - No
We all should stop using God's name in vain especially when we have THE POWER TO CHOOSE.
