Have you ever had an unplanned meeting with someone - a meeting that, when you looked back on it, you realized that an unusual sequence of events had to occur in order to bring both of you together at that particular moment? Chance you say? Coincidence you say? Perhaps.
Something like that happened to me last week. When I thought about it later, I realized that if even one of several steps on my journey to the place of the chance meeting had not happened, we would have certainly missed each other. For example, before I reached the place where the encounter occurred, I had to stop at another store. I had parked and walked all the way to the door of that store before I realized I had forgotten something I needed in the car – something I had been telling myself to remember as I looked for a parking space. [Now, maybe that’s evidence of a mind that isn’t very sharp anymore. I won’t argue that point.] Back I marched to my car, angry about the lost time. But, without the “lost” time this “memory lapse” added to my trip, plus several other strange little events along the way, I would not have ever seen the guy I happened to meet later. Chance? Coincidence? Perhaps.
But maybe, just maybe, something else is going on in these “chance”, “coincidental”, meetings.
To illustrate, where else should we go but to Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”? [Of course, you’re not surprised by that, are you?] A casual reading of these works would probably lead one to conclude that these are simply fantasy stories, written purely for entertainment. But even the casual reader might notice that the writer keeps hinting that there are powers at work beyond the visible characters that seem to orchestrate the eventual outcomes.
In “The Hobbit”, a wizard assembles a band of dwarves, and a hobbit, to recapture the ancient kingdom of the dwarves and its wealth from a dragon, a quest which, along the way, leads to the chance finding by the hobbit of a ring – an interesting sub-plot in “The Hobbit”, but one not actually necessary to the resolution of that novel. But this “sub-plot” is picked up again in “The Lord of the Rings” when it is revealed that this ring is a dangerous and evil weapon being sought by The Enemy. It turns out that hobbits, though small and weak compared to dwarves, elves and men, are the beings who are most able to resist the evil of the ring until it could be destroyed – the one thing The Enemy never considered as a possibility. But only those readers who go on to read both “The Hobbit” and the entire “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and then read the Appendices at the end of the trilogy will discover that all of this was set in motion by “a chance meeting” of the wizard and the leader of the dwarves before any of the actions in “The Hobbit” took place. In a discussion with the Hobbit, Frodo Baggins, after all has been concluded, the wizard reflects on the momentous events described in the books: “Think of what might have been. Dragon-fire and savage swords in Eriador, night in Rivendell. There might be no Queen in Gondor. We might have returned home from victory here only to ruin and ash. But that has been averted – because I met Thorin Oakenshield one evening on the edge of spring in Bree. A Chance-meeting as we say in Middle –earth.”
It is clear that this “chance meeting” was no coincidence at all. And, it is clear that Tolkien wants us to consider whether there might also be powers at work in our own world – powers beyond the visible characters – that are orchestrating the eventual outcomes – sometimes through what may appear at first glance to simply be “chance meetings”.
The Apostle Paul clearly believed that this is the case. “We KNOW [emphasis added] that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” Romans 8:28. “Chance meetings”? Paul would probably say, “Maybe. Maybe not. Look deeper”.
The truth is that we are part of a story, part of God’s story, that has been working out since The Garden. And therefore, everything that is happening is a part of that story. God, as the author, has not been taken by surprise by anything that has transpired. And, as the author, God is working things out according to His purposes and His timing.
So maybe, just maybe, those “chance meetings” are a part of the story that God has written for your life, and for mine, and for His purposes. So maybe, just maybe, we should pay close attention to those “chance meetings”. Maybe, just maybe, God is up to something we don’t want to miss.
Ambrose Ramsey | Shepherd
