Contact Me

If you enjoy my blog and would like to contact me, you may reach me at this email: dena.netherton@gmail.com

Some of my stories are published in:
A Cup of Comfort Devotional for Mothers and Daughters (Adams Media, 2009)
Chicken Soup: What I Learned from the Dog (2009)
Love is a Flame (Bethany House, 2010)
Extraordinary answers to Prayer (Guideposts, 2010)
Love is a Verb (Bethany House, 2011)
Big Dreams from Small Spaces (Group Publishing, 2012)

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Ready for your next God-Appointment?

I have a daytimer. I really like that thing. It helps keep my day clicking along.
It has spaces to write in thoughts and plans for the month, a monthly calendar, then several lines for each individual day. It also has a page just for monthly expenses, and payments made to me (from my clients). At the back of the daytimer is space for important addresses and birthdays, plus a slot to put important envelopes containing receipts and other necessaries.
I like my daytimer so much that I sewed a pretty cloth cover for it.
It's nice to be organized and to keep one's appointments.
But I'm not rigid about all of my appointments.
I leave room for flexibility in my day.
That's because I'm learning that it's highly possible that my appointments and plans are going to be pre-empted by God.
It goes something like this:

I have three things that I need to do in the next hour and a half: make dinner, return several phone calls, type up a devotional that I'm going to submit to XXXX publishing company, and mail a contract.
Then I get a phone call from X. She's distressed. She's having trouble with one of her kids. It's something I faced a few years ago. I listen, comfort, and when she asks, share some of the solutions that helped us, express sympathy, pray with her, promise to keep on praying, ask what I can do to help.
The hour and a half has passed quickly.

After the phone call, I make a quicker type of dinner and postpone the devotional and phone calls either to later in the evening or the next day.
The phone call from my friend was definitely a God appointment.
I'll bet you can also think of hundreds of times your schedule was pre-empted by a divine appointment.
Unlike me, God does not keep a daytimer, and even if he did, I would not be privy to the things He writes in it.
So I'm learning to keep my physical eyes on my daytimer, but my spiritual eyes trained on Him. Just in case.
Because the appointments that I don't write down are almost always more important than the ones I write down.
I think it's a good thing to do with life in general. I like to say, when making plans: "Lord willing and the creek don't rise."
Scripture puts it like this: "If it is the Lord's will we will live and do this or that." (James 4:15)

You never know when the next God appointment will be; it could be just around the corner, or two blocks down the road, or the next phone call.
Are you ready?

4 comments:

  1. Oh, such a good reminder, Dena. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love this-"the appointments that I don't write down are almost always more important than the ones I write down." Wow...so true. Thanks for this.

    ReplyDelete