God Used My Lazy Day

This last week I figured I'd give myself a little gift and sleep in kinda late. No alarm clock, nothing scheduled, just some good old fashioned 'down time.' Well, it alsways amazes me how God grants us this kind of opportunity and uses it to help someone else. Now the sleeping in part propbably didn't do anything to help, but the lack of a schedule did.

I have a friend who has recently been going through some very tough times and has had to ponder some equally tough decisions. My phone rang at about 10:30am, and it was my friend. He asked if I was sleeping and I told him no (actually I wasn't - I was in that state of just getting ready to get up). He asked if I could get together with him to talk. I remember talking with him on the phone a few days prior about another tough issue he was facing. I had told him then that he could call me anytime if he needed someone to talk to. Well, is guess God had destined this to be his anytime moment.

He asked if we could meet right then. I have no schedule today...how cool is that! We decided where to meet and when I got there - I discovered that my friend was comtemplating a career change. His current situation is a good one, but involves working with some 'difficult' personalities as well as working with family. I have never had to work with family, but I have had to deal in the past, with the rotten personalities other employees. I had once been in a similar situation, wondering whether I should quit and go somewhere else. During my tough time, I prayed and was asking God to remove me from this situation and put me somewhere else. Somewhere I liked and would be more useful. God answered my prayer, but not by helping me find another job. His prompting toward me was, "you are my ambassador (2Cor 5:20), and this is your mission field. Be my light in a dark place." From that point on, my whole attitude changed. I begin to live my faith more courageously and things began to change. These days, I love my job, I care deeply for the people I work with and have seen God do some pretty amazing things there!

Well, my friend smiled and told me that maybe that's what God wants him to do. I can't be sure if that's so, but I know that if you look at where you are and see it as a mission field, then things can change without a move. This kind of decision takes you out of the center and places Jesus there. And once Jesus is there and central, things will change.

I don't know if I really gave my friend any advice that he probably wouldn't have figured out on his own, but I do know that God used me and my past experience to help give someone else a new perspective to their situation. How cool is that?!