Right
Place at Right Time
Over the
years, at least three of my teachers have addressed the blessings of being at
the “right place at the right time”. (Joseph Prince Ministries. T D Jakes
Ministries, and Ron Carpenter Ministries)
The Bible gives several examples of this saying by using noted figures
and their experiences. As one example, note
how Ruth the Moabitess (a Gentile) met Boaz the wealthy Hebrew who would change
her life. (Ruth 2: 1-3) More on Ruth’s
experience is described below.
As another
example, note also Mordecai the Jew’s response to his adopted daughter Queen Esther
when the people of Israel were threatened by Haman the Agagite, a man who hated
Israel. Reinforcing Esther’s knowledge of her Jewish heritage, Mordecai reminded
her by saying “who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time
as this?” (Bold emphasis added)(Esther 4: 13-14) History showed that
Mordecai was correct in that for the sake of Israel, Esther was in the “right
place at the right time”.
But for the
sake of brevity, I especially want to bring to your attention the verse in the
Book of Ruth that recorded the key words describing the situation under which
Ruth received her blessing. She had been gleaning / gathering “leftovers” from
the fields, along with others among the poor. That verse says: “and her
hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz…” (Ruth 2:
3) This is the Boaz who would become the
“kinsman redeemer” for Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi, saving them from a
life of poverty, and who would ultimately marry Ruth. I highlighted the words “her hap” as recorded
because they tell us that this meeting of the two took place or “happened”
as an accident, or by fortune, or by chance. (Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary
“4745) Ruth “by hap” was at the “right
place at the right time”, and she received a life-changing blessing.
I encourage
you to review the full stories of both Ruth and Esther at your convenience.
Remember the
meeting when the Samaritan woman encountered Jesus at the well and He asked her
for water to drink? She was also at the “right place at the right time”, to be
able to bring the blessing of Jesus to her people in Samaria. (John 4: 1-42) The
difference between her experience and that of the Ruth ad Esther is that now we
are told specifically who it was that arranged for the opportunity for her to
receive the blessing. It was definitely the Lord Jesus Himself. (John 4: 3-6)
The Holy
Spirit has given us this knowledge so that we might learn from the experiences
of those who have gone before us. (Romans 15: 4) But we also have the opportunity to look back
on our own lives to see when, and how many times our Lord Jesus has put us
in the right place at the right time…whether to receive a blessing from
Him, or to be a blessing for others.
Less than a
week ago, I raised the window shade on a bedroom window to enjoy the morning
sunrise. Immediately I noticed a large plume of black smoke rising above the
backyard of a house down the street. It was far enough away so that I couldn’t see
which house, or whether the house was on our street or the one next to ours. I
also couldn’t determine whether the neighbor might be deliberately burning some
refuse in their backyard or if there would be another cause for the smoke,
which then had turned from black to gray.
After
hurriedly going down the street to investigate, I saw there was indeed a fire
in the backyard of a neighbor. We later learned that the swimming pool pump /
service equipment had malfunctioned and caught fire, and the fire had then
spread to nearby trees. When there was no response to my trying to arouse the
homeowner, I was successful in alerting her neighbor and I called the fire
department while in the process. The
first homeowner then appeared, and advised us that she has a hearing disability
and was not aware of the fire or our efforts to help. Fortunately the fire
department was able to extinguish the fire before it could reach the back of her
house. This was perhaps my most recent experience of being “at the right place
at the right time.”
In another
light, I’ve looked back on my life and many experiences that shaped my personal
and career decisions. We have no way to know what the outcomes might have been
if we had made different decisions. But we can look at the alternative decisions
we faced over time, the ones we chose, and the resulting outcomes that we have
experienced. For Christian believers, I would argue that such an examination of
our past would reflect how being at the right place at the right time led us
to our Lord Jesus. Further, we can
now see that our positioning was not due to our own efforts, but because the
Holy Spirit positioned us to be at that place and at that time.
That same
analysis would apply to better understanding the blessings we’ve received for
ourselves, and the blessings to be able to help others.
Dr. W. A.
(Bill) Robinson
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