Fawna Sutton shared these mission experiences with me at the end of last November and I finally got around to writing them up for you. May you be blessed!
DIVINE ARRANGEMENTS FOR DESTINY
“On the last night of a four-week evangelistic crusade that we attended in Chattanooga, I saw a young lady as we were sitting in the audience. We made eye contact and she smiled at me and I smiled back and thought man, she looks like the girl we met that has been coming to the meetings with her boyfriend… Brittany is it? So as we were going out the back at the end of the service, I saw her standing there and I said,
‘Hey, are you Brittany?’
‘No, actually my name is Destiny.’
We started chatting and I found out she works at the Little Debbie factory, and someone there who had given her a puppy recommended that she come to this church.
‘Yeah, this is actually my first time ever in an Adventist church,’ she told me. ‘My dad was a Baptist pastor for 18 years but I haven’t been to any church in quite a while.’
Turned out that Destiny had just been through a rough one-year marriage and divorce.
‘You know I didn’t do it God’s way, but I want to do it His way this time and I want to find someone who is in the church.’ Destiny confided.
We talked some more and I shared counsel from the Word. Anyway, please keep her in prayer. I just really feel that God brought her to the church we were attending and that he guided me that evening to make contact with her.” Fawna concluded.
Yes, there is no doubt, it must have been Destiny, even if her name had been Brittany! God never leaves giving chances to chance, and He will guide your life upward today in His salvation way and He will order your steps in order that you may meet others and invite them to come along! Speaking of ordering, Fawna also shared this lovely anecdote about a quotidian frustration of internet shopping that God turned into a dynamic witnessing opportunity:
WHEN GOD ORDERS FIRST
“I was looking online for simulators to buy for the missionary nursing school in Colombia. After a couple hours of searching on the computer I found some on eBay and had already made orders with a couple different sellers when Jeff told me that he had checked the prices with a certain company already and that I should follow up with them. Sure enough, when I compared the prices Jeff had written down, everything was cheaper, and I was like, Jeff! Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? Anyway, it was rather frustrating!
Thankfully I was able to cancel the orders though, and later I called the company and asked to speak to Angela, the sales rep who had helped Jeff with the price quotes. As we talked, I shared a little about what the simulators would be used for when Angela interjected:
“You know, this is just crazy”
“What’s crazy, my order?” I was confused.
“No, it’s just I live in Pittsburg and it is crazy up here, and my husband and I have just been feeling like God is calling us that we really need to go back to church, and spend time in his word” Angela’s candor was surprising.
“You know, I believe God is calling all of us to come back and spend more time with Him.” I replied.
“I wish he would call my son back! He used to go on mission trips and serve like you guys and now he has gone back to the university to get his doctorate and he’s given up on his faith and has become an atheist” Angela confided.
I shared some Bible promises with her like Isaiah 49:25 and tried to encourage her:
‘God is faithful, just keep praying for your son, God can bring him back from the land of the enemy.’
‘My husband and I are trying to read the Bible, but we are really struggling to understand it.’
‘Well if you want to give me your address, I will send you some books that I know will be a blessing to you in your study’ I offered.
‘Oh yes, I would love that.’ She replied.
So just keep Angela and her husband and son in your prayers as well, and that the books that I sent out will really be a blessing, that they’ll read them and will come to know truth! At the end of it all I was just like, Lord, I know that you worked all this out and helped me to get the other orders canceled so I could order from Angela and have that conversation with her. People are looking for light and looking for truth, and I just pray for God to bring us across their path so we can share that light and truth with them!” Fawna finished.
So when Angela sent out the shipment of simulators, Fawna sent out a shipment of present truth literature and the two packages crossed paths somewhere, just like a myriad other packages that cross paths every day, except that this crossing was no meaningless, random happenstance, but the result of a previous ordering by Providence in the seemingly mundane task of the day. Thus our failures and frustrations become God’s victories. Thus mission packages multiply.
How about you? Have you surrendered to His guiding hand today? Are you willing to find the opportunities God sends when your plans for the day derail? Won’t you let Him who orders the orbits of every intricate system make all your spins and turns count for something beyond yourself, beyond this world, yes, even beyond all the stars? Have faith. Be faithful. He will do above and beyond your wildest imaginings. You will trace His workings through you throughout eternity.
