Almighty God Tabernacle church

It's always something isn't it? It seems like always, something is changing, something old, something new, something challenging us, something unexpected. That's the thing about life, it is full of the unexpected "somethings" isn't it? One of the problems I see is that rarely do we credit God for the unexpected somethings in our lives.

I ran across a wonderful story that illustrates this point very well. There's a store-front church which is called Almighty God Tabernacle. One Saturday evening, the preacher of this church was working late, and decided to call his wife before he left for home. It was about 10 PM, but his wife did not answer the phone. The preacher let it ring about two dozen times but she didn't answer. He thought it was a little odd, but decided to finish up a few things and try a few minutes later.

When he tried again, she answered right away. He asked her why she hadn't answered before, and she said that the phone hadn't rung at their house. They brushed it off as a fluke and went on their merry ways.

The following Monday, the preacher received a call at the church office, which was the phone that he'd used that Saturday night. The man that he spoke with wanted to know why he'd called on Saturday night. The preacher couldn't figure out what the guy was talking about. Then the guy said, "It rang and rang and rang, but I didn't answer."

The preacher then remembered the mishap and apologized for disturbing him, explaining that he'd tried to call his wife. The man said, "That's okay. Let me tell you my story. You see, I was planning to commit suicide on Saturday night, but before I did, I prayed, 'God if you're there, and you don't want me to do this, give me a sign now.' At that point my phone started to ring. I looked at the caller ID, and it said, 'Almighty God'. I was afraid to answer!"

Does God work through the unexpected? Surely he does! Most of the time I don't think we have any idea he may be involved with the unexpected something in our life, but what if he is, what if God is trying to change our lives, trying to teach us something "Life Changing"?

In Luke 5:1-11Jesus comes to his apostles who had gone back to fishing. He asks them about their success and they tell him they had fished all night and caught nothing. He tells them to try one more time and they caught enough fish to sink the boats. The unexpected had life changing results. We are told, "So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him."


I wonder what God is trying to show us when the unexpected happens in our lives?

--Russ Lawson