Coincidentally

“That was quite the coincidence that we would see you here,” my grandson said, looking up at me as we walked side-by-side toward the parking lot after the conclusion of his brother’s soccer game.

His parents didn’t tell him we were coming. They weren’t sure because we weren’t certain we were going to be able to make it. Things worked out though, and we made the two-hour drive to Mustang that Saturday morning and arrived just in time for the game to begin. One grandson was on the field and two others were on the sideline when we walked up to them and joined them in cheering on their brother.

It never occurred to me that my grandson would consider our arrival as anything but a planned event. But he is eight after all, and since no one told him we were coming, during the game he reasoned it out that we “coincidentally” happened upon them at the soccer field.

His dad, my son, overheard his comment. He laughed and said, “You don’t think Pawpaw was just our randomly walking around soccer fields two hours from home and just coincidentally found us here, do you?”

“But no one told me they were coming,” he responded.

To him, not being told in advance and not being let in on the plan meant there wasn’t a plan and our meeting was an accident of fate, a happy coincidence. If he had been older, a mature man, he would have understood without being told that this was part of a plan, that someone told us when and where the game was, and that we came because we planned to. But children think like children.

A lot of people believe blind chance rules the world; that there is nothing more than happy (or sad) coincidences running our lives. Karma, good fortune, bad luck… these are the forces that get all the credit.

Spiritual maturity (which is not a biological age issue) leads one away from the silly thinking that things that clearly had to be planned were mere coincidences. It brings you to a place of resting in the reality of a God who has the power and wisdom to guide all things toward His intended purpose.