Last minute convergence, like the Red Sea...

On April 3rd we found some airline tickets to the states for really cheap and bought them in faith thinking that Anzo's adoption would be done in time for us all to visit the states together. Complications arose in the process and we were coming to the deadline. It looked as though we would not get the visa in time. To make the story short, we had our embassy interview at the end of Wed, received our visa end of day Thurs, they were closed Fri, Sat, and we flew out of Sun. It was at the VERY LAST MOMENT that we received Anzo's visa.

Prior to all this I sat and pondered such a stressful situation and wondered why God had things unfold in this manner. I knew that our interview was just a couple days prior to the flight and that things would have to work out perfectly for us to travel and things rarely go well at the embassy. I wondered why didn't God let Anzo receive his visa a month ago to relieve all the stess. I realized that it was to show his presense more definitively.

Had Anzo received his visa the month prior, I would have given little thought to God's involvement in this process. Getting cheap tickets to fly home was amazing and getting Anzo's visa was also amazing but the fact that both realities converged at the exact moment they did was nothing short of divine.

I look at the Israelites as they came to the Red Sea. I believe that the Red Sea did not just spontaneously part at that particular moment, rather that it was planned long before. Take this hypothetical situation, I believe that several weeks before the Israelites ever left Egypt there was a storm developing in the Atlantic off the coast of England. It blew across Spain and the mediterranian until it came to the Red Sea where it "blew all night long" and seperated the waters.

I believe that wind would have come one way or another. The parting of the Red Sea is amazing, but what makes it divine was the convergence of this amazing event at the exact moment that the Israelites arrived there and cried out in need. God didn't provide only after the cry. He knew and planned it beforehand. He sent that wind on its path long before they arrived and needed it.

Many times I cry out to the Lord to provide "at the last minute" in my time of need only to find out that for God, "at the last minute" had been planned for long ago. This is more comforting to me than a fleece blanket and cup of coco on a snowy evening. God can be trusted because he cannot be suprised.