Coincidence = Not

There is no such thing as a coincidence.

God's blueprint for our lives is not whimsical. The Ancient of Days is is above mere chance, He is the Author of life. And we are His ink, pulsing, breathing, moving to the stroke of His pen - so much wiser and more magnificent than we can fathom. This fact that's been true since before time began is just now becoming clear to me. Here is just one example of countless...

I was at Peking University yesterday. I was having dinner with a friend and walked back to my bike at 8ish and noticed that my back tire was lifeless and limp. So I walked my bike to the gate - tire and spirits deflated. I noticed the lights on in this one building. I walked in out of curiosity. I walked down a hallway and to my right and left were the brightest and most brilliant brains in China bundled up, sipping jasmine tea and jotting down notes with haste - one grand competition to be the best, to make your family proud; because you are their only hope. I stopped at a horseshoe-shaped lecture hall with maybe 250 students and an animated professor. I was just observing what I couldn't comprehend when I noticed a man to my right wearing a Boston Red Sox jacket. I asked him what this class was, he said it was seismology - an elective about earth quakes that everyone takes for an easy A. We started chatting and he said his name was Jason and was waiting for the break so he wouldn't walk in late - social suicide. So we exchanged stories and numbers.

I called Jason up today and we had lunch together. He's a Christian and interested in studying more about Him. It wasn't mere coincidence that my back tire was limp and lifeless, it wasn't mere coincidence that I walked my bike past the lecture hall at that exact moment in time, it wasn't mere coincidence that I had the curious thirst to enter and linger, it wasn't mere coincidence that Jason was running late and didn't want to commit social suicide. Our orbits collided - that is not chance or an accident, it is the stroke of His all-knowing pen.

- m -