Wednesday, January 25, 2023

“God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing. You have bedded me down in lush meadows,  you find me quiet pools to drink from. True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction.” (Psalm 23: 1 – 3, The Message Bible)

                 Godwink “essentially refers to a coincidental event or experience that is perceived to be fate or destiny. It can also be inferred as the work of divine intervention hence the use of ‘god’ with ‘wink’, acting as confirmation you are either on the right track or perhaps hinting at a different path that you may not have considered.” (An internet definition)

                The term is especially used when two persons inevitably find each other and fall in love through a whole set of circumstances that throws them together time after time again – as if God was bringing them together.

                Recently, I encountered a lovely Godwink story while I was acting as the on-call chaplain at our hospital. Sadly, the man had just lost his wife in their 69^th year of their marriage. They met all those years ago when he was attending university. He was dating someone else when he graduated and due to some job restrictions, he couldn’t marry her for a couple of years. She didn’t want to wait and broke off the relationship. His wife-to-be, a nurse, was dating a doctor. He wanted to go to a third-world country and practice medicine there. A noble ambition but her parents didn’t want her to go because of the risks and dangers. She, too, broke it off.  Eventually, not long after, the fated  two met at a church function and the rest, as they say, is history.

                God works in mysterious ways.

                It goes to show that if we put ourselves in God’s Way, good things can happen. “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” (Ephesians 2:10, New Living Translation)

                Now I am not a predestination kind of guy, believing that everything is predetermined nor do I believe that God pulls our puppet strings. But I do believe that God desires our benevolence, our blessing, our happiness, our joy and provides us every opportunity to respond to his hopes and promises for us. We have the free will to walk away from those gifts, ignore his leading, choose our own paths.  God is even there when we stumble, lose our way, fumble our future or stubbornly go our own way and it is the wrong way. Often God gently nudges us back or offers to guide us back into the way we should go.

               Of course, life doesn’t always go the way we wish it would. We may face times which are difficult and painful. We may wonder where God has gone when the going gets tough. But I would suggest to you that God is in the gaps and cracks of life, looking for us. Like the Good Shepherd of the parable, Jesus seeks for us when we are lost and feeling abandoned and don’t know which way to turn.  The Good Shepherd brings us back into his Love and carries us on his shoulders to get us back on the right path.

             He leadeth me, He leadeth me, By His own hand He leadeth me/ His faithful follower I would be, For by His hand He leadeth me.

                It can always be surprising how God works in our lives. It is not always spectacular or magnificent. It may seem coincidental and unexpected. Yet after all is said and done, we begin to understand that the Love of God has always been at work for us and with us.

                Here is my definition of a Godwink: “Guard me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings…” (Psalm 17:8, New Revised Standard Version)

 Dale