It's funny how God works...

[XtattiK]

I am routinely amazed by the way God works to bring about His purpose. I have had far too many moments in my life where the odds of everything falling neatly into place the way they have is so remote that i can only conclude that God is pulling strings somewhere.

Over New Years I got to see how God can spoil our plans (well, someone else's this time, but i'll get to that), let everything seem to be going wrong, and use that to bring about His glory.

I was part of e beach mission team on Budgewoi for a number of years. I've since stopped, but I still have good friends on the team, and in the area now, so myself and a few others tend to go help with setup/packup and maybe do a night or two of security so the team gets some sleep. Particularly this year as they had struggled to get people who could come for the whole time, so had a particularly small team.

Over the last couple of years, the run down property next to the site they set up on has been bought, redeveloped and now has residents. Last year she filed complaints about the fact they were moving in for the 2 weeks, and council agreed to a 5m clearway between the tents and her property. No real problem. This year, she's been complaining a lot louder. Due to some delayed communication (mostly due to late council postings and Scripture Union only running a skeleton crew as they approached Christmas) no one had told them that the guidelines had changed. This year it was meant to be 30m between her fence and the tents. That pretty much cuts the site in half.

No one new this though, so we began setup as per normal, laying out tents and sorting out equipment. It was raining off and on, but no one really minded as the tents had to be up for two weeks - they would have time to dry over that period. It makes tying ropes a bit harder, hammers slippery and the general environment not too comfortable, but you deal with that. At least it kept things cool.

Then the neighbour comes out to explain that we had to move the tents. Now we normally couldn't set up on the half of the site we were being given. There are too many trees in the way, as well as bins, tables and signs that are all set in place. Kinda awkward to pitch tents around. If the directors had known about the 30m rule before hand, they would have called it off, believing they couldn't make use of the site. If the weather had been fine, then they probably would have packed up there and then and gone home. Because they didn't know, and because it was raining tents were out, they were wet so they couldn't be packed up. With more rain forecast for the next few days they couldn't even leave a small crew to deal with the equipment and pack up the next day. So after much rearranging of things they managed to get everything to somehow fit.

This is where everything started to go right.
If the team hadn't been so small, they would have needed more tents and wouldn't have fit.
The arrangement of the tents meant that they were close enough to be connected by the wall flaps, so that you could get from one tent to another without getting wet. Considering the few days of rain, this was a great benefit to the team, and the campers who came to participate.

Why did God want it to go ahead? They had some of the best turnouts, especially for adults ministry, that they've had in years. They got to council a few people on holidays as well as some of the locals through some serious issues, and put them in touch with others who could continue that work.

If one of those things hadn't happened - small team size, poor communication, wet weather - then that mission wouldn't have happened.

It's nice to be able to see that God is always at work. Even when we think things are going wrong or turning against us, it could just be that God sees more of the bigger picture than we do and has planned accordingly. Hopefully I'll remember this next time I wonder what on earth is happening in my life.