It’s a Small World

One of the ways God enjoys making me smile is through “small world” encounters. It must make Him smile too, to set up these preposterous meetings in random places just because He and I both enjoy it.

In case you’re not familiar with my neighborhood, Ocala sits in the middle of Florida. It had about 20,000 residents when I was born here. Though that number has tripled in my lifetime, we’re still an hour and a half from a major airport or the beach. We’re not a suburb of a major city. It’s just…Ocala.

When I moved to California, I once went on a double-date—a walking tour of San Francisco. Besides the tour guide, only one other couple joined us. They said they were from Florida…

Ocala, Florida.

Wait. That’s where I’m from.

The first time I flew overseas during college, I went with a friend. But my return trip, from Amsterdam to Atlanta, would be alone. I spotted a couple on the plane who had known me for much of my childhood. Globe-trotting isn’t scary if at any moment you might just see someone you know. We enjoyed catching up over the Atlantic Ocean.

God doesn’t limit the fun to Ocala connections only. I attended a small, one-day conference in Seattle three years ago. A lady came up to me during a break and said, “I think I know you.” She had been the director of my freshman dorm in Texas 30 years prior. How she recognized me I’ll never know.

And a fun one happened in Moscow, Russia. Our team had a three-day layover there returning from Kyrgyzstan. We decided to see the famous Moscow Circus (because we couldn’t afford the famous Moscow Ballet).

There was some mix-up with our tickets. A woman and her three children wanted our seats and asked if we would instead sit in her seats in another section. At least that was the message we were getting through our attempts to communicate. Maybe her kids couldn’t see over the people in the other section or something. Whatever. We obliged.

With a different set of tickets, we went down the stairs and up more stairs to another section of the huge indoor arena and filed into the new seats.

The group in the row in front of us were speaking English. American English. American English with a Southern accent.

A few minutes before the lights went down, I leaned forward to ask, “Where are y’all from?”

A man said, “We’re a Boy Scout troop from…”

You guessed it.

“…Ocala, Florida.”

What are the chances?

Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? I don’t live by chances. And neither do you. I live by the hand of a very big God who is aware of a very small me and takes great care in arranging the most unusual meetings all over the world.

These meetings have never seemed particularly strategic or necessary. I have no doubt He could arrange such a meeting in an important or critical situation someday. But these have always occurred just because He can. Just because He wanted to.

And that actually makes them more special. In a world that often won’t give us the time of day, God goes out of His way to craft a wink that says, “I planned that surprise. I thought you’d get a kick out of that.”

His involvement with us isn’t distant, and it isn’t utilitarian. We’re not a fleet of servants that He “uses” and then ignores. We’re His delight, crazy as that may be. His expressed love toward us is custom-made, unexpected, and unsparing.

As fun as it is to tell your kids stories like this, it’s equally fun to watch God writing more of them for another generation.

It was Bryn’s second plane trip ever. Ross had a conference in Colorado, where his brother lives. He planned to take Bryn along for some family time with cousins her age that she doesn’t get to see often.

COVID, in the meantime, cancelled the conference. But since the tickets were bought and a little girl was excited, they decided to go anyway.

The trip was on, but it wasn’t easy.

Besides the added layers of pandemic air travel, their departure was delayed two hours. Then instead of a direct flight, they were ridiculously rerouted through Minneapolis from Florida to arrive in Denver at 3:30 at Gate C48.

Meanwhile, another daughter, Hope, had traveled to Seattle to visit her former roommate. She was on her way home to Florida that same day, with a one-hour layover in Denver.

She texted me before take-off, wondering if her dad and sister would be in Denver when she was.

Well, she had a tight connection, and Denver is a big airport. I wasn’t holding my breath as I searched the updated flight info.

The airline’s website told me that Hope’s flight would arrive at 3:15 at Gate C43, with her connection to depart from C48. Incredible.

She would practically run into them without trying. And she did.

Now, God wasn’t arranging a meeting because it was the last time these two would see each other. He wasn’t going to all this trouble because it had been so long or because they needed to hand off a secret decoder ring. He was just being extravagant, because He’s like that.

She caught Bryn’s stunned expression on video before flying arms enveloped Hope in a big hug.

And now, maybe Bryn thinks it’s normal to travel halfway across the country and bump into your sister. Just because God thought that would be fun.

Small world. Big God. What a great way to live.