This past weekend was the Portland Healing Revival, a conference that Hearts of Fire Ministries hosted (I’m on staff), featuring Ivan Roman and Todd Bentley, with worship by Angela and Michael Pinkston and the Unfiltered Worship Band.  The conference was awesome, and God showed up in a big way, touching hundreds of people with His love and glory.

Running a conference requires a bit of planning on the front end, a lot of work during the event, and a little bit more on the tail end.  For this particular event, it involved me going Sunday morning to drop off a bunch of our ministry equipment at the church where we store it.  I met another ministry associate there, and the two of us unloaded my truck in a short time.  As we finished, Todd and his assistant pulled up, as he was speaking at that church that morning, so we chatted with them for a few minutes, then helped her set up his product table while he went to meet with the Senior Pastor.  I had promised my wife I wouldn’t stay forever, so I only stayed for one worship song (after greeting some friends), then got in my truck to head home.  As I got in, I saw I had left one of our staff badges on the seat of the truck.

Annoying.

I had literally just taken everything else inside, and had forgotten the badge in the vehicle from two nights prior.  I felt this nudge from the Lord to “go take it inside and put it where it goes.”  I mentally balked, as we will be holding our monthly Catch Heavens Flame meeting at that church this weekend anyway—I can just return it then.  Keep in mind, I’m still parked literally right outside the building, and where the badge goes is probably not more than sixty feet from where I am sitting.

I felt this nudge yet again, and the message that the Lord communicated with it was “Be a good steward and put the badge where it goes.”  For some background, good stewardship is important to me.  I firmly believe we as believers need to be responsible with the things we have been given, whether a job, house, ministry, family, the earth, or anything else.  It’s scriptural, it’s right, and it’s important.  After hearing that, I got up and took the badge inside, put it with our storage, and left the room to leave.

That’s when I smelled the smoke.

When I arrived at the church someone had told me they were having a potluck, so I headed down the hall toward the kitchen to see what might be burning.  I continued smelling smoke all the way across the eating area as I passed the tables, then rounded the doorway into the kitchen where crock pots were lined up along the counter.  At this point, I couldn’t smell the smoke anymore and I wasn’t sure why.  I sniffed at each electrical outlet a slow cooker was plugged into just in case that was it, but they were all fine.  I still didn’t see an obvious source of fire, so I kept walking along the counter and reached the stove.  One of the burners on the stovetop was on for no discernable reason, as nothing was cooking on it.  Strange, but no visible burning. Until I looked down at the oven and saw a tendril of gray-black smoke rising from the oven door that was slightly open.  I quickly pulled the door down to see a large cardboard takeout box in the oven.  To make things worse, the handle at the top of the box was touching the upper coils of the oven and was literally burning.

I grabbed some dry dishrags nearby and pulled the offending takeout container from the oven and put it by the sink, pieces of smoldering cardboard ash falling off the box as I did.  After ensuring it wasn’t going to burn any further, and after I turned off the stove, I notified one of the pastors, showing them what happened so they would be aware, then got in my truck and drove home.

This entire encounter blew me away.  Ten minutes later and the entire building could have been on fire.  Everyone was worshipping upstairs, and it is unlikely anyone would have come downstairs for an hour or more.  Six or seven ministries use that church, and we had just loaded most of the ministry’s equipment into the basement, so had the church gone up in flames, it could have been bad in all kinds of ways.  What struck me the most though, wasn’t how God had gotten me there to stop a fire, but that when He did it, God didn’t tell me about the fire.

This encounter could be the beginning of a number of different preaching messages—about how God knows each of our individual ways, speaking to me about stewardship as the thing to get me to go back inside, about how the enemy wants to block our ability to hear in the spirit (God may have tried to tell six different people inside about it for all I know), or even the importance of following that still, small voice speaking to us.  In reality, any and all of them are valid and valuable takeaways.  God does know how each of His children work and what makes them tick.  God also knows the enemy wants to prevent us from hearing from God, so He makes use of backup plans and side-routes to lead us to the goal anyway.  God also speaks in ways that are both obvious, as well as in those quiet nudges that we have to learn to respond to.  Regardless of which one speaks to you the most, I think we need to be reminded that God cares about every detail of our lives.  There is never anything too small or too large for God to take notice of.

Whether it is being a good steward and returning a badge, or God watching over and protecting an entire church of people, nothing escapes His notice.  We can be encouraged when we hear stories like this that in every situation God has a plan to turn things for our good.  Bad things can and do happen, and those things are the work of the enemy, not some cosmic plan of God’s to teach us some kind of lesson.  Yet, in spite of the enemy’s attempts to steal, kill, and destroy, God is committed to working in and through every situation to bring out our highest good.  And that’s a promise we can take to the bank.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)”

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ (Jeremiah 29:11)”