In this Year would you like to live on the edge of expectation?

If so, choose to stop living a life of anxiety and hesitation.

Bow your head and fill the air with this life changing prayer,

“Lord, save me from focusing only on mine and me.

Supply surprises this new year that will set us free,

With opportunities to help others live on ‘victory run.’”

Then begin to walk daily with your Heavenly Father.

Accept the new life that comes from Jesus, the Son.

Eagerly anticipate every new start.

Trust the Holy Spirit to create compassion in your heart.

Replace your ordinary living, built within predictable fences.

Choose adventure with abundant life in Christ,

Expanded by an exhilarating series of divine coincidences.

Ask now “What is a life changing coincidence?”

A reporter, Lee Strobel, claims his life was changed by friends,

Who lovingly shared new life faith with him,

Giving him a chance to begin living again.

He reports that in Christ, wonderful personal friendships,

Are being multiplied every day, beyond his defensive fences.

His new friends became a reality by a series of divine coincidences.

One divine coincidence he records in The Unexpected Adventure.*

He tells that several years ago he felt the Spirit’s call,

To share an Easter invitation with his newspaper editor.

Since Lee felt the movement of the Spirit was so strong,

He was sure he could not do anything wrong.

He went immediately to the office to begin a faith conversation,

And to issue to his boss an Easter Sunday worship invitation.

Lee was dismayed when his boss expressed no interest at all.

He feared he had misread what had seemed like a divine call,

To share faith with someone in need of divine intervention.

Years later, Lee spoke in Chicago at Willow Creek Church.

A middle aged man came forward and greeted him saying,

“Thank you for the influence you’ve had on me and my wife.”

Lee responded, “Please tell me the story of your life!”

The man replied, “Several years ago I lost my job.

I was afraid we were going to lose our home.

I called a friend who worked for a local newspaper.

The only work he had was a need for some tile laid.

He hired me when I assured him I could make the grade.”

He went on to say he had begun to pray for a future that day.

The answer to prayer came the week before Easter,

When on his new job he was laying tile across a room,

Behind the editor’s desk in the office of Lee’s boss.

“My life began to change the moment you walked in.

You talked to the editor about God and Jesus and Easter,

To a guy who had no interest in what you were excited about.

But I was hearing an answer to my prayer. I wanted to shout!

After you left I went out and called by wife and said,

‘We are going to church!’ ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she said.

We all ended up coming to this church that Easter morning.

My wife and my teenage son, and I all came to faith in Christ.

Thank you for being a faithful witness to what you believed,

Even when you did not think your sharing was being received.”

That very day Lee Strobel walked away,

Saying, “Lord, what a wonderful faith building coincidence,

You and your servant have shared with me this day!”

*The Unexpected Adventure by Lee Strobel

and Mark Mittelberg (pages 14,15).

See Poems and “Faith Stories” on http:www.curtschofield.blogspot.com/