I boarded the San Antonio-Dallas flight, leaving our meetings a half-day early (the product of a communication mix-up.) I greeted the fellow traveler settled into the window seat, discovering him to be quite conversational (at least for a 7:00 am flight.) A meteorology professor from a university in the mid-south, Brian’s research specialty is hurricanes. There was immediate common ground—we had three hurricanes pay us a visit in the summer/fall of 2004 and had spent fall break 2005 helping with Katrina clean-up. After a delightful discussion of emergent insights into the field of hurricane prediction, the conversation turned to my world and ministry, and thus spiritual things.
[CoJourner - EXPLORER]
I showed Brian our project - Soularium: A Dialogue in Images (see http://cojourner.blogspot.com/2007/01/from-lab-soularium.html). He shared openly his thoughts on life, God and spiritual life. His wife was enjoying their current church affiliation, but for him it was less satisfying. Nor did he have any significant connection with like-minded professors at his university.
[CoJourner - GUIDE]
I shared with him about CLM (http://www.clm.org/) and said I could help get him in contact with this faculty ministry. But I also asked if I could show him Satisfied?, an outline I wrote with Dr. Bill Bright to help others understand and experience God’s gift of his Holy Spirit. (For a flash version, see: http://www.cccdev.org/inter-linc/satisfied/). We were half way through it as we landed in Dallas, so I offered to buy him a cup of coffee in the airport to finish. He readily accepted the offer. But after we deplaned, he declined the coffee (he doesn’t ever drink it), and said he only agreed because he wanted to be able to finish our discussion. So we sat down and completed the outline. It was a delightful discussion and as Brian reflected on his response, he appeared at the threshold of decision. He understood the need to surrender control of his life to the Lord and I am confident will continue to reflect on those possibilities.
[CoJourner – MENTOR]
I am now contacting Rick, my good friend and CLM National Director, to see if we can help make a connection for Brian with others who can encourage him in his spiritual journey.
As we finished, Brian said, “Now I know why I got iced into San Antonio. I was supposed to fly out on Wednesday.” “I was supposed to be in a meeting this morning and on a flight later today myself,” I replied. “I guess all things happen for a purpose,” he concluded. Indeed, God, the Master Designer, was orchestrating the intersections of spiritual journeys once again.
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