What a beautiful time it is to be in the City of Oaks. That’s right, I’m talking about you Raleigh North Carolina. November was an exciting month for me. First and foremost, I was FINALLY able to get my car to pass inspection so I could get my new tag. Seriously, it took me an incredible amount of time to accomplish something that really shouldn’t be that difficult. This is due in large part to me not realizing that Wake County required an emission test to pass inspection. Who knew? Unfortunately, this is something that my blessed 2007 Honda Accord wasn’t able to accommodate. She still can’t. However, the people of the local DMV were able to grant me a waiver so that I could get it passed. Now back to regularly scheduled programming…
Something that really stuck out to me in November was the presence of God’s Kingdom. I will get into that a little bit here. Guys God’s Kingdom is everywhere. It is literally everywhere. I find myself forgetting that often. That must have been on God’s radar because he showed up in countless spaces in the month of November. One example of this happened whilst I waited in an incredulously long line at the local DMV (backtracking right to my DMV experience haha). I encountered two different people while I waited in line both pointing me in the direction of Christ by the way he showed up through them. The first of which was a lady who found herself in line right behind me. We started chatting it up about random stuff which somehow brought up her daughter who is graduating from NC State in December. I’ll take this brief moment to give a passionate GO PACK! I’m sure a lot of Tar Heels will be reading this blog and to you I say read ‘em and weep… of course talking about yall’s box scores across football and guess what, basketball too, ever since you played that beautiful Wolfpack football team. Where were we? So the aforementioned kind lady bearing God’s image expressed how badly she wanted her daughter to get a good job post-graduation in December. To that I responded, “Well, yeah it’s hard sometimes,” not inspiring much confidence. To this she responded, “Well God will be good.” It can be so easy for me to gloss over that, but blessed be that woman of God’s Kingdom reminding me. A while later, as we waited in line, a gentleman about 4 people in front of us, only wearing one shoe I might add sporting many holes in his clothes bundled up in a blanket, walked right outside to a lady clearly shivering while she waited and offered up that blanket for her. What a beautiful and tender image of how we are to love God’s people. This man clearly didn’t have much to give, but he gave all that he could. In five minutes, that man loved a lady he didn’t know better than I may have loved anyone in my entire life. I didn’t say a word to this man, but the way God touched my heart through his actions will not be forgotten.
In summary, the presence of God’s Kingdom in November showed up constantly and reminded me that God is indeed good and will continue to be, and also that his Kingdom brings light into a dark world through the way that it loves. What a beautiful reminder the Lord gave me in November. I am thankful for the way that he always shows up even when I miss or neglect it. Thanks be to God!
I know this blog wasn’t super fellows related, but I just had to talk about that a little bit. Thanks for reading if you made it here.
Matt