Lights on the Runway: Providential Circumstances

About fifteen years ago one of my mentors, Tom Yeakley, shared an illustration with me which has stayed with me for years. Tom shared that the tools God gives to discern His purposes are like lights on a runway.

Have you ever passed a small regional airport at night? Maybe, in the midst of the darkness, you’re still able to see the bright lights on the airport runway. When we pass an airport at night we can’t always see an actual runway, but we know it’s there because we have indicators that point us toward the runway.

In much the same way, God has given His people lights on the runway so we can begin to move forward with confidence believing there is a runway from which we can land or take off. God gives us five lights on the runway.

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Runway Light #5: Providential Circumstances

“To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” Revelation 3:7-8

Something that seemed absolutely amazing and you just couldn’t call it a coincidence. Maybe a friend or a mentor or a family member came into your life at just the right time.

Or someone shared something with you and you thought, “How did they know that? Who told them what I had been thinking or feeling or praying?”

Or where God provided for you and met your needs in such an amazing way at the very last minute Throughout Scripture God shows up in all sorts of unique and supernatural ways. Sometimes those ways were dreams, visions or a word of knowledge he gave to a person to share with someone else.

If God works this way, why wouldn’t he continue to work today in creative and intentional ways to get out attention?

Did you know that thousands of Muslims around the world are converting to Christianity each month? And when these Muslim converts are asked why they left Islam and turned and committed to following Jesus as the Messiah, do you know one of the primary answers they give? Because I had a dream and in my dream a man named Jesus showed up and I learned for the first time he loved me and invited me to follow him.

For some of us, this might seem different. Maybe we didn’t grow up in a tradition that affirmed God works like this, but the truth is he clearly does show up in this way for his purposes!

Some of you have experienced promptings – these internal spiritual nudges that you know are real inside of you. On a very practical level, when you have these promptings, these nudges, and you wonder if they are from God:

• Write them down.

• Ask other trusted people about them: have others test, process and/or affirm them—and then begin to live into them.

I frequently experience these nudges that come in the form of thoughts: someone comes to my mind and it seems completely random, a friend I haven’t thought of for years or a situation from my past with no logical reason why they popped into my head. Often, I take that as God trying to get my attention about someone ; and usually that is a trigger to prayer or to write an encouraging note or to send someone a text or swing by with flowers and a card.

I encourage your to follow God’s promptings and lean into providential circumstances.

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These are taken from the original ebook, 5 Lights on the Runway, which is available to download.