Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.—Colossians 3:23, 24, NIV
It’s good to be cautious; however, sometimes God puts people in our path for a reason. He puts them right there in our path, leading to a choice: stay on that side of the road and help, or cross over to the other side and don’t help.
My three-mile-long road is an excellent place for loving people and talking about Jesus. One day while I was walking, I was chatting on the phone with my friend Georgia when a man pulled his truck up to the edge of the road from his long gravel driveway. He rolled down his window and hollered out, “Do you know my wife, Kelly?”
“Just a second,” I said to Georgia, “a man is yelling at me. I need to go over to his car.”
“I’ll be praying,” she replied as we ended our conversation. The man repeated his question to me. I said I didn’t think I did.
Not deterred, he continued. “My wife, Kelly, was just diagnosed with cancer and is going into treatments.”
“I’m sorry to hear this. Would it be all right if I came to visit in a few days?” I asked.
“Yes, you can,” he replied, then drove off.
It is nice to take something along on a visit so I decided on potato salad. I made my salad and headed out with a friend a few days later. The man, T. J., met us at the door with his children and sister-in-law.
T. J. said, “Potato salad is my favorite thing and I rarely get it.” (Score another one for the Holy Spirit’s inspiration!) Kelly was too sick to get out of bed and not up for visitors.
I asked, “Would you like for me to have a prayer?” We held hands around the circle and I prayed. It was a nice connection that we made with this family on our road. And we have maintained the connection. Several months later, Kelly stopped her car on the road and thanked me. She was doing well. Another time she stopped to report she was healed. A couple years after that, I again knocked on their door to share that my book had come out. The children especially were excited to tell me their own God-moment stories and let me hold their pet chinchilla. It is rewarding to work for the Lord and to meet people on the road that God puts in our path.
Diane Pestes
First published in In His Presence (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press), 2018.
Carolyn R. Sutton, editor
