A Divine Appointment in the Lobby of the Best Western

A month ago I received an email from a pastor in Belize who had found my blog post about the hardship of Belize pastors, entitled “The Pastors’ Graveyard.” I was shocked that he found my unknown blog and hugely blessed by an encouraging email from him. His name stuck in my mind: Pastor Love. Since we were coming to Belize City, I knew we might have opportunity to meet, but was uncertain if it would fit “my” schedule. I put him on my list of people to call. Then on Saturday afternoon, only minutes after we had checked into the Best Western Hotel in Belize City, Altha and I spontaneously decided to take a taxi downtown to an Indian restaurant. When we entered the lobby I saw two men at the desk, and wondered if one of them might be our taxi driver—neither was. In fact, the taxi driver was 15 minutes late. But one of the men approached us and said “Are you Dr. Greg?” “Yes,” I said, quite amazed. And before I could even ask “and who are you?” he said “I am Pastor Love.” He recognized me from my picture on my blog profile. He explained that he was checking his friend into a room at the hotel, and that he had not planned to be there for another two hours, but his plans had suddenly changed. We had a beautiful connection while we waited for that “late” taxi! And made plans to meet the next morning when we had another beautiful, divine time of mutual encouragement. It was so obvious God had arranged our meeting.

What a great lesson this was in God's sovereignty, to the smallest detail. I thought we were making the decision to take a taxi to dinner. I thought something was out of order when the taxi driver was late. Pastor Love probably thought he was the one who spontaneously changed the time of their check-in! But all along, God was setting up a divine appointment, 2,000 miles away from our home in the lobby of the Best Western Hotel in Belize City.