My Will Kranz Moment.

So this last work trip encountered one of those God moments. Yea those ones where you least expect it. Your purpose is to get from Point A to Point B and God comes in and gives you a completely different reality.

I was on my second flight from Miami to Charlotte coming in at night. I love flying into Charlotte at night. Something about the beauty of that skyline, my skyline, home, lit up is beyond compare. Other than viewing this as we approach our final descent my night flight wants are to catch a few zzz's before I am picked up and taken somewhere to get food since I am back in the south and need "home restaurants" This usually consists of Bojangles, Chick-fil-a or a variety of sit down restaurants that are my Charlotte favorites. Another reason for the napping is because a lot of movement in a confined space without being able to see out either makes me nauseous or gives me a terrible headache so staring at the back of my eyelids usually helps this.

Well this was not the case. Hopped on the flight and settled into my seat and was getting ready to just pass out for a quick nap when God intervened. I chuckled and I immediately thought to myself that this is a Will Kranz moment. For those of you who don't attend The Cove Church, Will is an amazing student pastor. He, a few month's ago, brought a message about how God works where we are and we think or expect one thing but often that thing changes and we walk out of the situation or conversation with a different perspective. For him it was in a courthouse for me it was on a plane. We may not have saved a soul or impacted eternity but we had a conversation about life that may change each of our perspectives for a long time. This was definitely my case.

Beside me sat a guy from Germany. Just back from a cruise we just said hello and were having the small talk about the airlines and the normal social banter you have before you lift off as you buckle in. However, once in the air the conversation just grew deeper and deeper. From beginning about travel and school, life and politics we covered the gamut of the conventional conversations. We then began into talking about religion and politics and how they play into each other in our different social settings and countries. The longer the flight the deeper the conversation went. Eventually we were talking about the rules and the grace of the gospel.

We talked about if God is a relational God, then He calls, He yearns, for us to be in relationship with Him listening to and leaning on His word and His movement in our lives. Then we began talking about the importance of if we are in a relationship with Him then we should want to obey his commands and his rules for our lives. The grace and the love that God provides us with is something that just astounds me and during the entire conversation I kept praying over and over again for God to give me not just the words the other person wanted to hear but the ones they needed to hear as well. We began to talk about what this looked like through the lens of business and economics and even apprenticeships that he had just finished.

Through this conversation I was encouraged by how God places people in our lives to bring about topics and conversations when we least expect it. To be encouraged by someone across the world and to know that whatever their relationship status with God is between them and God but that I got to see a glimpse of how He lives and moves in the lives of others.

Just like Will's story, as we departed the plane sharing names to become friends on facebook, a soul was not saved that day. I had a roaring headache from talking to them instead of taking a nap. I could not have been more happy to have a headache in my life. Knowing I participated in God's plan to bring Him closer to this individual is all that mattered.

Pay attention to those moments. Don't miss them! Allow God to work in the mundane and the amazing and be expectant that He will.

His love never fails.

EB