The Unexpected

So this weekend has been interesting. Very good, but interesting. God really took me out of my comfort zone this weekend. Being the second friday of the month, we did the monthly City Rescue Mission micromission trip. If you don't know what that is, every month I take anywhere from 35 to 70 LifeChurch volunteers to the City Rescue Mission, where we do a LifeChurch service for the homeless clients there. We generally have anywhere from 100 to 200 people show up for the service. God always meets us there in a big way, and each month in a different way. This month, he really stretched thing. Or, should I say, He really stretched ME! Normally, our worship band will do a few warm-up songs, and then play the worship set. Then I will do a short welcome/intro, where I tell them who we are, what the message will be about, etc., then we play a dvd of one of many of pastor Craig's archived messages. Normally I try to select a mesage each month that I feel will speak to the hearts of the homeless. We have been doing it this way for a couple of years. There have been a couple of occasions that a person here or there, especially Camerson Wilson, have encouraged me to preach once in a while, but I have never had the courage to do so. It seems like each month, we ALWAYS have some kind of technical problems, as the equipmet there at the rescue mission is pretty crummy, but we somehow always find a way to make last minute repairs that get us through the night. Well, this month was different. The coaxial cable from the projector (that is hanging from the 25 foot ceiling) that we always plug into our laptop for the song lyrics and the message BROKE. PERMANENTLY. So in other words, we were singing without lyrics to the song, and we were not able to play the dvd. SO, yours truly, being the leader of the trip, had to come up with a solution FAST. And the only solution being that I had to get up onstage and PREACH! And needless to say, I was NOT prepared for that! I have known for a long time that we might someday have a malfunction that required me to speak off-the-cuff, and knew that I should prepare a short message to always have ready, but being the procrastinator that I am, I kept putting it off. Not good. Because here I was with a hundred people looking to ME to do something, say SOMETHING! Now, let me say that normally, I am not nervous at all about getting up on stage at the City Rescue Mission, because it's only for a couple of minutes, and it's only to intro the message, or to do the "altar call." This time, let me assure you, I was NERVOUS! Try as I may, I couldn't come up with what I wanted to talk about. So I prayed, VERY earnestly, "God, I don't know what to say. Please, just fill me, and speak through me. Let the message be what these people need to hear." And I still didn't know what I wanted to say when I stepped up there. But I had faith that God would come through when I needed Him to. When His people needed Him to. And come through He did! Referring to our technical difficulties, I began to talk about when we all experience times in our lives when things don't go the way we expect them to, or when things don't go the way we want them to. I talked about how we handle those times, whether we turn to God, or whether we turn to the things of this world to ease our pain in troubled times. I talked about how nothing else would heal our pain or satisfy our souls but a relationship with God. I talked about how no one is too far gone, or too screwed up for God to transform their lives. I talked about how He created each one of us uniquely, and how He has an amazing plan and purpose for each of our lives. I talked about how much He loves each and every person there, and that becoming a christian didn't mean that they will wake up in the morning and have a new house, a job, and a nice car, and that life will be a cakewalk from now on. I told them that they will still have earthly, physical struggles. But that the difference is, that now, instead of confusion, they have peace. Instead of despair, they have hope. Where there was once pain, God will bring healing. Where they are weak, He will be strong. It was an amazing, anointed time, and I could literally feel God's presence there. When it was all said and done, 12 people gave their hearts to Jesus that night. And God showed Himself faithful and true to me in a new way. He took me to a new level Friday night. And I understood more than ever, when He is involved, it is never rote or routine. And I understood more than ever, that it is SO not about me - that regardless of how I might plan the trip or the service, that HE has a bigger plan, and His plans ALWAYS trump my plans! He orchestrated the night the way HE wanted. And it was GOOD. And I guess that He is going to continue to stretch me, because until and unless the projector gets fixed (fat chance), I am going to have to preach each month from now on! I think He's trying to tell me something......
When is a time that God has stretched you or used you in a way you didn't think was possible? And what was the outcome?