FLEXIBILITY: GOD’S MUSIC, WRITTEN IN THREE FLATS

Some of the most dangerous times in our life and ministry are when we lock our dreams and hopes in concrete, when we become so focused on what we are planning to do that we cannot see what God is trying to do. One day while serving among the Maasai people of East Africa, I was running late for an appointment to meet with the village elders in a place called Mbirikani, which was about an hour from our home. The purpose of the meeting was to appeal for a site where we could build a church in that village. My planned departure was delayed, and my wife tried to soothe my anxiety with the words, “God has everything under control.”

I quickly drove my 4x4 station wagon up the road and was making good time until I got a flat tire, which I hurriedly changed. A few miles later, I had a second flat and made a tire change that would make a pit crew proud. Deep in the bush and well off the road, I had a third flat tire, and my third and final spare had to be removed from the luggage rack. In getting it off the roof, it rolled away from me and down the hill into a large clump of thorn brush. By the time I retrieved it, my clothes were torn, and my face and arms were bleeding from multiple scratches.

As I was preparing to mount the third spare tire, a Morani, a Maasai warrior, came walking out of the forest and greeted me. I did not wish to have a conversation because I was dirty from changing the flats and was now very late for what I thought was a critical appointment. His greeting was congenial and correct, while mine was harsh and abrupt. But I had good reason: I was late, dirty, bleeding, and angry.

His next words stopped me. He knew my name. He had heard me preach a few weeks before, and that morning when he woke up, he decided to go to town to find me and ask me to help him receive Christ. He had set off before sunrise to walk about 15 miles to town to find me and, only halfway there, had found me on the roadside. I stopped changing the tire, cleaned my hands, and got my Bible out. Soon we were sitting under a thorn tree, reading and praying together as he became a newborn follower of Jesus.

When we were done, he thanked me and disappeared back into the forest, and I sat in wonder of the way God schedules our lives. I knew I had been right on time for the only appointment God had scheduled for me that day. I had no spare tires left, so I finished mounting the third spare, turned the truck around, and headed home. Days later, I learned that the meeting had been postponed until the following day, and our appeal had been granted. The community had given us 10 acres of ground to develop the ministry.

Our plans and dreams are often far removed from what God has in mind for us, and a lack of flexibility may cause us to miss Him and be broken in the missing.

LIVE DEAD CHALLENGE

Look for a way you can be flexible today. Anticipate an interruption and welcome it as an opportunity, an event God has scheduled for you—even if it makes you late or means that something you planned does not happen. In the days to come, look for ways you can be flexible. In service opportunities down the road, commit to dying to your plan and schedule that you might live to the surprises God injects into your daily life.

LEAST REACHED PEOPLE GROUP: OROMO

Oromo means “the powerful.” The Oromo are an ethnic group found in Ethiopia, northern Kenya, and to a lesser extent in parts of Somalia. About 95 percent are settled agriculturalists and nomadic pastoralists, “practicing” archaic farming methods and living at a subsistence level. A few live in the urban centers. Pray for the Oromo that the 17 percent Protestant Christians among them will become a missionary people. Pray that Oromo men and women will be saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, and sent as missionaries to their Somali neighbors. Every time you hear about Ethiopia, would you pray for hundreds of missionaries to be sent from Ethiopia to Muslim peoples?