The weather in Northern Indiana was a bit crazy this past weekend and the scheduled speaker we thought we were going to have in the high school ministry gathering was unable to make it. I called one of our former students who is in between ministry jobs and asked if he might be available to speak. I would have done it, but I needed to be “on call” in case our senior pastor’s recent hip surgery stopped him from being able to preach.

I was bummed and my original speaker was bummed. It was a bit inconvenient and clearly unexpected. I’m in a season of trying to vary up who my students are hearing from, both inside and outside our church. There is something significant about lifting up all the parts of the body and not just the pastor. I’m guessing I’m not the first person to realize that or write about it.

As we were settling in for the lesson on Sunday, I got a text from the original speaker and it said:

“Maybe a divine appointment. I’m home sick today anyways. Hope your morning is good. I wish I was there.”

I read that text and as I looked up at my former student communicating, it dawned on me how divine the appointment was and I wouldn’t have seen the significance until that exact moment.

See my former student is still growing and forging the direction of his ministry. He is trying to sharpen his skills while searching for the next role that God would present to him as Jesus writes the journey of his life. And this moment was pregnant with opportunity.

Cody was teaching on Galatians 5 and was doing a great job. He had about 48 hours notice to put the message together and was really digging in. I snapped the picture you see here and sent it to my friend with this text back:

“An unplanned opportunity to develop a young guy. I’m pretty sure He is still the God of Order and not Chaos.”

To be quite honest, there were a number of other things I was doing that morning that stalled me from recognizing the value of the moment. But it became abundantly clear that this was a divine appointment; a directed opportunity to invest in Cody’s life and ministry, and it was clearly orchestrated by God up above.

I started taking notes. I wasn’t going to miss another moment of this opportunity. I started taking notes to encourage Cody in the work that he put in, on short notice, to make the morning happen. I started taking notes that I hoped would help Cody in his communicating to others get better.

Cody wrapped up, I shared some announcements with the students and dismissed them, and then I shared some of my notes with Cody. The reality is that sometimes we are called to lead and shepherd in the last second. Cody got to learn that today. And the reality is that sometimes we have to recognize the opportunities that are right in front of us because often they are the most difficult to see.

See, today, I was reminded that sometimes the inconvenient and unexpected produces the fertile soil for divine appointments to present themselves. The question comes down to whether or not we will capitalize on those moments when we discover them or let them slip into oblivion into the basket of potential.