Opportunity Knocks

Sometimes I am amazed at how God creates opportunity. Last Thursday night, I was responding to a group email circulating with 4 of my friends, and I commented that after a week that felt semi-low key homework wise, I was enjoying a evening of (very nearly) slacking off, but I still had a 12 page paper to write by Monday, a sermon to prepare for Sunday afternoon, and a pastoral care verbatim to write by next Friday.

At that moment, I ruined my ability to slack off. But I digress.

By some crazy twist of fate, my son (who is 5) didn’t have school on Friday, so my wife decided to road trip with the kids. Our nearest shopping mecca is about 90 minutes away, and she likes to head that way when the opportunity knocks. The nice thing for me was that they didn’t leave to come home until about the time that I got home from work.

EMPTY HOUSE!!!!!

HOMEWORK TIME!!!

So I sat down and went to work on my report (due Monday). I got that finished and emailed off to my professor. One big thing knocked off the list. Fast forward through Saturday, because admittedly, I didn’t get much of anything done.

Then Sunday…I head off to church in the morning still wrestling with the potential sermon for Sunday afternoon. Background, I was performing a short worship service at a local mental health care facility. The good news is I can pull out an old sermon if I need to, but I don’t like doing that. The really good news is hearing the pastor’s sermon Sunday morning sparked off my mental status and once my kids went down for naps after lunchtime, I was able to knock out the sermon. Admittedly, it wasn’t one of my best ones, but it was new and fresh. It wasn’t recycled.

There (at the last minute) was number two off my list.

So then I headed off to the facility for the service. I’ve done this particular service twice before and have had positive experiences each time, so I don’t know why I get leery before going, but such is life.

Once again, it was a good time with good conversation with the residents, one in particular turned into a very good conversation. As I wrapped up and left, I realized that it was a total pastoral care moment.

I walked out to my truck with my phone buzzing from a message that my wife had sent me saying that she took the kids to a movie and did I want to join them. This would have been possible as I was only about a mile from the theatre, however, I heard opportunity knocking yet again.

She’s got the kids…the house is empty…I have a subject for a verbatim fresh in my mind.
So I headed home and wrote up my verbatim…posted it, emailed it…done deal. List of big extra things to get done…completed...and there was much rejoicing.