Recently I experienced a Twilight Zone of a Sunday morning.

The Southlake church where I am preaching is completely new to me. That’s not unusual. What is unusual is how many incidental relationships from my very young ministry are there. The pastor himself served a decade at a church where the Lord broke my high school sophomore stubbornness and where I later served as Evangelism Minister for a year upon graduating college. Interesting, but not enough to evoke Rod Serling. So I walk into the church and immediately see the face of a young man I recognize, but can’t place—until I realize he’s the adult version of a kid I knew in my early ministry. His mom (who passed away several decades ago) and dad lived around the corner from my fledgling family, encouraging us with prayer, visits, and occasional Saturday morning waffles while we got our ministry footing in Arlington. Then I’m greeted by a man who pastored in Fort Worth at the same time I began my long-term pastorate in Arlington. We had traveled to San Francisco together with a ministry/mission team and became good friends, but haven’t seen each other in 25 years, since our ministries took us separate directions. Finally, I sit on the front row. The gentleman behind me offers to shake my hand. He just happens to be in town from his current ministry in Cuba and to be at that church that day. When my mind finally shakes the water from its long fur, I recognized him. As an 18 year old freshman in Waco, I wanted to start a ministry to college students at Texas State Technical Institute and needed somewhere to meet. I went to this stranger’s church and made my case to use his facility on Friday nights. He not only acquiesced, but gave me advice and showed up and encouraged others to help me. And here he is, shaking my hand in Southlake. I practically never run across people from the ministries I had a part in while a teenager and in my early twenties. But on this Sunday I see 4 of them in the same place at the same time, all there for different reasons.

I can’t even imagine the number of people the Lord used to push, bumper, and backstop young me and mine into the places he wanted us to be. Nor can I estimate the number of those about whom I will never know anything. But the brief emergence yesterday of a handful of them remind me that none of my journey has been unseen, unattended, or unaided—sometimes by the invisibly direct movement of God, but most often through agents He has occasionally let me see, yet I suspect most often has not.

On one side, then, remember the value of every interaction you have today, knowing you may be the Stephen for someone’s Paul or the Lois for someone’s Timothy. On the other side, know that breath itself is sufficient evidence that God will be constantly attending to your every moment, whether directly (in His shadow, under His wings, as Moses describes it), or through His messengers (whether we recognize them or not, per the author of Hebrews).

May our uncertainties about what or how He is working be overcome by our faith that He is working. It is a faith well-grounded in the in-between light of His kingdom in this world. (That last line works best in Rod Serling’s voice.)

To the liminal light of a new week!