Coincidence?

co⋅in⋅ci⋅dence
spelled pronunciation [koh-in-si-duh ns] –noun
a striking occurrence of two or more events at one time apparently by mere chance.

I have noticed several “coincidences” over the past couple months that have me wondering quizzically.

Example 1: I was trying to think of a surprise gift to give Debra for our 15th anniversary. I wanted to take her to England and Scotland, but knew starting a new job, moving to a new city and buying a house made this nearly impossible. In the interest of information gathering I met with our Ministry Pastor who develops all our overseas mission trips to see what a weeklong trip to the UK would cost.
A few days later, I find out I have some money coming from the pension plan of my last job! The odd thing is that I didn’t even know I was enrolled in the pension plan. So I took the money and bought plan tickets to London.

Example 2: In preparing for this trip I needed to buy some comfortable shoes. So I went out looking of a pair. Before I could find any I liked a old friend of Debra’s from high school sent her a Facebook message saying she heard about our trip and was sending me two pairs of shoes an old boyfriend left here place. Guess what? The shoes fit great and will work perfectly. I took them out for run this morning to try them out.


Example 3: In seminary I took a church planting class as a way of "fleecing" God to see if he wanted me to be a church planter. Providentially, I did not plant a church and didn’t really think about it again until about 5 years ago when we landed at The Evergreen Community. They have church planting built into their DNA. So, again looking for a place to do kingdom work I started thinking about church planting. I met some people, starting taking about ideas and…nothing, no plant. Now, I am in a church in Denver and I seem to be having a ton of conversations with church planters. Denver is a hot sexy place to church plant. Not that I am going to plant a church, since I am pretty sure this is not what God has for me, but I am scratching my head.

I could go on with more examples.

Once I realized all these I started to say, "hmmmmmmmm."
What am I to make of these coincidences?
What is a Christ follower to do with these “striking occurrences of two or more events at one time apparently by mere chance?”
What are we to do when the two ends our world converge in the middle?


Here is what I thought of:
1. Understand these are not chance circumstances dove tailing together seamlessly by the comic grease of the universe. Clearly these are God orchestrated collisions of people and events.
2. Listen carefully. Too often we miss God speaking because we won’t shut up long enough to hear him. Reread 1 Samuel 3 and 1 Kings 19:9-18. The Devil may be in the details, but I think God is in the subtleties.
3. Acknowledge them. Act on them. Be grateful for them. Enjoy them.