Sometimes an unexpected change can be God’s way of doing for us what we need done before we even know we need it. The New Testament is pretty clear that God is there for us but he will not intrude uninvited. That said, there are moments when I think he lets a change happen that we need, even though we didn’t know we needed it. I will give two examples.
When I was in the Marine Corps, we were having a two week drill at 29 Palms California. Don’t let the reference to “Palms” make you think it was a vacation spot. Far from It. The Marine Base at 29 Palms is a two hour drive to the middle of the Mojave Dessert. We were in tents for two weeks in the middle of the desert. It was 130 degrees in the day time and we were in full military uniform all day every day. We even slept in our uniforms. Got the picture? Well there were two camps and we were stationed in the west camp and had already gotten set up and unpacked and ready. I was with my own unit and my own guys. Our Captain came in and said he was transferring me to the other camp with guys I didn’t know. I was not happy. As it turned out, he wanted me to be his personally driver for the two weeks to handle all the dignitaries that were coming in. In short, it was a blast and I had fun and even got to leave 3 days sooner than the rest of my unit. So what started out as a bad change turned out to be better for me.
The second example was when I left JLL in May of 2007. The idea was that I would sell hotels on my own and work on a few hotel deals each year. Just me selling by myself. We had gone out to eat with Lanie and Brad about a week after that. At the time Brad was still on staff at the church and he expressed an interest in learning the hotel business. I told him we would think about it some and maybe we could work something out at some later date when I knew what I was going to do. He was married to my daughter so the father in me was concerned about income and stability for my daughter and new son in-law. The plan was we would revisit the idea at some time in the future. Well, the next day Brad resigned from the church and called me to say he was ready. Ha.
My first impression was, how we could have gotten our wires any more crossed up. One day he was gainfully employed and the next day he was looking for job. Well as you can guess, I scrambled around and created a job for him to help me sell hotels.
The point is, God knew I needed Brad to help me when I didn’t even know myself. God knew what I needed and he did for me what I would not have done for myself. That single decision was what launched Hotel AG. If Brad had not quit his church job we might have never formed Hotel AG. God is good and he knows better than we do what we need.
If you are a tither and a believer, sometimes God does the unexpected and lets you see a glimpse into where he sees your future. Many times those decisions come in the form of an unexpected change in our lives. Therefore not every change is a bad thing and we need to step back sometimes and watch God at work in our lives. KT