Teresa's Testimonies: The Receiving End Of God's Humor

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Being On the Receiving End Of God's Humor
(Sunday July 15, 2006)

I arrived church Sunday Morning eager for God's touch, and sat down in my usual seat. (My usual seat is way to the left end of the front row). I had just come from a prayer meeting where we had prayed for the lost in all parts of the world.

The person sitting directly on my right was an occasional visitor. I don't know him, but I think the is the unsaved relative of our regulars. He doesn't come very often, and when he does come, he doesn't usually sit through a whole service. I smiled and greeted him with a quick "hello," then I ignored him. To my surprise, he did not leave at the end of worship. He stayed in his seat as the sermon began.

Rodney (our senior pastor) does not like to preach from the platform, so he moves his podium down to the ministry area just in front of the first row of seats. This particular morning, Rodney moved the podium much closer than usual to the first row, so he was only about 2 feet in front of it. That would not be a big deal for those of us sitting in the front row, providing no one leans forward.

But as it turns out, the man next to me decided to lean forward just as Rodney stated to preach. He completely blocked my view of the speaker. I have this "pet peeve"--I really hate it and get frustrated when I can not see the speaker.

I knew Rodney moves around a lot as he preaches, so I figured this man leaning way forward was not a big deal. Yes, he was blocking me now, but when Rodney moved in a few minutes, I should be able to see him just fine. So I just relaxed and waited for Rodney to move.

Guess what? The instant Rodney moved, this man changed his position. He ended up blocking my view again. I thought to myself "What a coincidence! It can't possibly happen again." But it did. In fact, every time Rodney moved, this man adjusted his position so that I could not see Rodney at all. Part of me began to wonder if he was doing this on purpose, but I knew that could not possibly be the case.

I began to feel frustrated. After a while, I was so frustrated that I stopped even trying to listen to the sermon. No matter where Rodney moved, that guy readjusted his position so he was complete blocking Rodney. (To tell the truth, I had never seen someone lean forward as much as this man did--and I began to wonder what kept him from sliding out of his seat.)

I decided that since I was not paying attention to the sermon, I could try paying attention to God. So I closed my eyes and started trying to pray. Suddenly someone kicked my leg, forcing my eyes wide open. It was the fellow next to me who decided to cross one of his legs over his other knee, and his foot was planted squarely on my right thigh. I tried to readjust myself in my seat but could not really get out of range of his foot. I was starting to have some not very loving thoughts about this man.

I decided to tell God how frustrated I was with this guy and get him to move out of my line of sight to Rodney.

"Why would I want to do that?" God replied. "I went to all this trouble to put him in your line of view so you could pray for him."

Isn't it funny how we sometimes view the very thing God is showing us as an obstacle instead of as a message from God?


-- © GodSpeak International 2006 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@GodSpeak.net> --

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