To Him who is out ahead of me

I was called last Friday about a meeting that was to take place today. The one who informed me to prepare for the meeting, told me how vicious the people were who instigated the meeting. So, I was "loaded for bear."

The rest of the story reminds me of some of the fights that the Old Testament records that Joshua was called into. The battle lines had been drawn. The armies showed up, but God had laid all the groundwork and the Israelites routed their enemies. The Jericho takeover is a good example of this kind of story.

So, I showed up for my meeting. The person who had called the meeting was extremely nice. The people vicious people who instigated the meeting were equally as nice. They posed their questions, but accepted the answers. A resolution was made before the meeting's end. A more amiable meeting probably has not been held in this place. For a flash of a second, it seemed as if the groundwork for the meeting had already been laid.

In the old days of my youth, I would have let that flash of a thought go and looked for more earthly reasons for the meeting to have gone smoothly. But, these days, I pay attention to the flash of a thought. Of course, the groundwork had been laid. It seems that earlier in my life I had chosen to close my eyes to a recurring theme. Abram had the groundwork laid for him when he took his only son to the mountain to sacrifice. Isaac had the groundwork laid for him when he went back to his homeland to choose a wife. Jacob recognized the groundwork done for him before he met Esau. Moses knew that the pillar of fire was there to go before him into the wilderness. Joshua only had to march around walls for them to collapse. Jehoshaphat knew that someone had leveled the playing field for him before fighting one of his local enemies. Gideon conquered a huge army with only a handful of men because of the work ahead of time done for him. Even the Son of Man had someone who went before him to prepare his way.

So, call it scales falling from the eyes or something, but today I was supposed to have been led into a lion's den. I could not help but notice that someone was in the pit with me who had shut the lions' mouths. So, I say thank you to the One who goes before me on the way.