I thought you might appreciate this. It happened to me this evening. [Feb. 3, 2000]

When I "accidentally" bumped into John Guziak at Giant last weekend, he asked me to come with him to a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting in Fredericksburg. The Lord quickened in me that I should go. John said to meet him "at the commuter parking lot" Thursday at 5:30 PM. I put it on my calendar and planned to go.

Everything happened today to prevent my going. Some poor soul tried to commit suicide on Route 66 and closed the road down for almost three hours. That really delayed my getting to work. (I would normally work late to offset my arriving so late.) One of the folks I support had a proposal due out today. It ABSOLUTELY had to be delivered to the Info Technology folks at Dept of Treasury. At 3:30 PM this afternoon, I had no input. I got some of what I needed at 4:00 PM. That made my going to the FCA dinner almost impossible. But since the input was incorrect and inadequate, Operations decided to delay the submission.

I left work at 4:15 PM and arrived at the commuter parking lot at 5:20 PM, in plenty of time to meet the folks going to the FCA dinner. No one showed. I waited until almost 6:00 PM and was "spitting nails". My natural resentful, bitter and insecure self was thinking that "they really didn't want you to come along". [I misunderstood John's direction to me. It was really my own fault that I wasn't where I should have been.]

I was sitting there "stewing" in that perspective for about 5 minutes when the Lord showed me a picture. It was a building under construction. I was looking up at the scaffolding. I didn't understand what He was saying but He then prompted me to drive to Fredericksburg. I thought "That's nuts! You don't know where they're meeting! Just go home!" But if I did that, I would have continued to feel sorry for myself.

I hesitated. I only knew there was a dinner in Fredericksburg. Fredericksburg is on Rt 95 and there are literally hundreds of places where folks could be meeting. I drove around Warrenton, went by Faith Christian Church (no one was there), drove by Warrenton Bible Fellowship, tried to get in touch with John Kuvakas at Joe Jacoby's (i.e. John had left for the day), called John Guziak's house and got his voice mail, and I finally started to drive.

When I got close to Fredericksburg, I stopped at the Holiday Inn (i.e. I was still not trusting Him completely). They had no idea what the Fellowship of Christian Athletes was or where they might be meeting. I got back in my car and started to drive. He impressed me to go south on Rt 95 and turn on Rt 3 west. When I got on Rt 3, I saw a Ramada Inn on my left, but decided to go right, away from the Ramada into a large strip mall shopping center. In driving through a morass of buildings, I saw the building under construction that I'd seen while sitting at the commuter parking lot in Warrenton. I thought "It can't be! The place looks to be a wreck. That's certainly not where they're meeting." I parked. It turned out to be a hotel. I went inside and asked the lady at the desk, "Do you know where the FCA is meeting?" She said to me, "Are you walking or driving?" I told her I was driving and she said, "They're meeting in the ballroom at the very back of this building. It's a long way to walk in the cold."

You might think is was just luck, but it isn't! He just proved to me again that He really loves me. He's so wonderful! Hallelujah! He cares enough for each of us that if we really start to trust Him and truly rely on Him, He'll honor that. Proverbs 3:5,6 says, "Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In ALL your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." He'll not only make your paths straight, He'll show you how to get to an FCA meeting when you don't know where it is.

Blessings to you and yours,
Joe Keesling