How God shows up in the fine details of our lives

El McMeen

In a number of articles I have shared "God-at-work moments" in my life. I have many more of these I want to share with you, to witness to God's blessings in my life and to encourage you to confirm to yourself and others such things in your life. I've taken to calling these events "everyday miracles."

I had a musical one for you, but something came up in the last three days that is so fresh in my mind that I had to share it. It involves my oldest son Jon, who just turned 30.

In the morning of the day in question I drove to a local post office to do a mailing. When I returned I found a voice message from Jon saying, "I left my cell phone (Palm Pilot) on the rear of your car! Please look for it!" He had been talking with some people, had left it on the car, and then went away without it. That little item isn't cheap, and had all kinds of photos and valuable business information in it. He was rightly concerned about it.

I hastened to the car; the phone wasn't there. I looked around the garage; the phone wasn't there. I called the number as I walked throughout the house. I didn't hear the thing ringing anywhere.

So, like a good dad, I put my coffee down, went to the car, and painstakingly retraced my path to and from the post office. As I passed one of our favorite hangouts, "Sneaky Pete's," I took a special look around - not for any logical reason-but I did anyway. (More on this later.)

I inquired about the phone in some local stores. It didn't show up, and nobody had seen it.

There was no way to reach my son and report this activity, so I just returned home and went back to what I was doing.

Time passed.

As I was playing guitar that afternoon, the phone rang. My caller ID doesn't work, so I didn't know who was calling. The voice at the other end asked, "Did you lose a cell phone?" I exclaimed, "Yes!" I asked where he found it; he said "On Ridge Road, near Sneaky Pete's." The thing must have flown off the car and landed-intact and functional- near the restaurant!

Wait...it gets even better.

So, I asked where I could pick it up, he told me, and shortly thereafter I headed off. He lives across from a church. As I pulled in the driveway at the address he gave me, I noticed a familiar lady there. She recognized me and greeted me. She is a waitress at Sneaky Pete's, where the phone was found!

But there's more. She is a lady to whom the Spirit moved me, the first time I ate there, to give her a pocket copy of the Gospel of John. She had been wearing a cross; I had copies of the pocket edition of John with me; and so I just gave her one on impulse. Or I "thought" it was on impulse!

There was that lady now in the driveway. If I had come two minutes earlier or later, I wouldn't have seen her. Seriously.

But there's more. I got the phone, and offered money to the young man who found the phone (he declined it, although he did accept a couple of my guitar CD's; I'm not sure he is a fan of guitar music, but I told him he could "re-gift" them!

I took the phone home.

Jon was ecstatic about getting the phone back-intact and working. He then left to meet us for dinner at our local Chinese restaurant.

As he pulled into traffic and was thinking about this great everyday miracle, he glanced at the license plate of the car directly in front of him. The license plate read:

GODLVSU

I contend that the more we expect God to show up in the fine details of our lives, the more we will see Him, and be prepared to extol His glory. It was my son who connected all the dots on this. He was the one who reminded me that I had given the Gospel of John to the waitress at the restaurant; I had forgotten that. And he shared with me the license-plate incident.

God is creative beyond our wildest ideas! You just can't make this stuff up!