My checked bag had gotten misplaced on the trip home from Peru, somewhere in-between Iquitos and Los Angeles—so when I arrived in Austin I filed a claim for lost luggage, then went home. The next evening I got a message telling me that not only had it arrived in Austin just a short time ago, but that someone was driving the almost-hour to my house to deliver it to me!
I live on a highway in the country, but during the night it is very hard to find—partly because you can’t even see my house from the road and partly because the speed limit is 60mph so unless you know where to stop, you’re probably going to miss it in the dark. Knowing this, and wanting to actually get my luggage back, I drove to the end of the lane, parked just inside the gate, then walked to the road so the delivery driver could see me.
I had gotten a series of texts that included a literal GPS tracker so I could reload the page and see in real-time where the driver was. Technology is a bit over-the-top these days, to be honest, but in this case it made things a little easier. Traffic was minimal at 10-something at night so I saw the driver slow-roll past my lane and then put his hazards on and stop. He was clearly trying to figure out where to turn, but he spun around, saw me, and pulled in. According to the app the driver’s name was Wasiu, and he was a pleasant man, who greeted me by saying “God bless you” for making it easier for him to find the place. We briefly spoke as he returned my bag from the airline, and then I began to walk back to the gate to get in my van and drive back to the house.
As he was about to pull away and my back was turned to him, the Holy Spirit spoke a word to my heart so I quickly turned around and ran to Wasiu’s car to stop him before he drove off. What I said to him was a single sentence, a very simple message the Holy Spirit had dropped into my spirit moments before. All I said was:
“God wants you to know He has heard your prayers and He is going to answer them.”
He had started to drive off but he stopped the car, parked it, and got out, then shook my hand, thanking me profusely for telling him that. I have no idea what he had been praying for and I didn’t ask, but it was clearly very important to him and the prophetic word landed where it needed to.
Sometimes I think we expect that ministry needs to look super-special in some way. In fact, that moment of delivering a timely word was as much “ministry” as the almost 2-week Peru Overseas Missions trip I had just arrived home from the day prior. We can clearly point to mission trips and church services and outreach events as “ministry” but the fact is that “ministry” doesn’t always have to look spooky or special. Sometimes it looks like sharing a timely word to your lost-baggage delivery driver at 10:00 at night as he is about to leave. The “as we go” command of Mark 16:15 really is about “as we go.” I’m not saying we can’t have times of intentional ministry because those are important too, but we must make sure that our ministry times aren’t only the times we specifically set aside to do it. “As we go” is a lifestyle choice, and everyone can (and should) do it. We are Sons and Daughters wherever we go, and Kingdom authority is present within us everywhere we are, which means that “as we go”, so goes the Kingdom. Our job is to help “your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” but it won’t happen by accident—so let’s go!
