God is sooo good and amazing!! Here is something that happened recently: On Wednesdays, I usually go to AIS for work. Later that night, though, I had small groups at Kevin's house, so instead of getting dropped off by the school bus at the Ashiya JR train station, I got off with the last student at Shukugawa station (since that's the station closest to Kevin's house). Because I still had time to kill since it was early, I decided to go to the nearby McDonald's to do a little sermon prep. (Yep, I preached at the end of October and here's the link!)
Usually I sit on the right side as you walk in, but this time, it was kind of crowded, so I looked down the counter area on the left side. At the end of the counter, it looked like one of my friends, but since all Japanese guys look alike, I thought it probably wasn't him. I proceeded to order my coffee and I started walking to the left, down the counter area. And lo and behold, I realized it was my friend at the end!! I said "Hey!" and he responded by saying, "Reo!! I actually just sent you a message on Facebook since I wanted to ask you a question". He wanted help with his English and I helped him. We then talked a little and since I still had to prep a little, we did our own thing.
Before leaving, I had a feeling that I should share something with him. So I asked him, "Hey, do you want to hear something awesome?" and he said yes, so I shared with him our theme verse, Galatians 2:16 where it says,
"yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified"
After explaining to him that all we have to do is believe in Jesus and we'll be justified or declared righteous before God, he was able to apply the verse to himself, saying, "so God will accept me even if my video/presentation fails this weekend?" and I told him, "that's right!". I then asked if I could pray for him and he said yes, so I prayed for him. As I walked out of McDonald's, I realized that the night before, before going to bed, I prayed to God asking for a divine appointment the next day. Now I don't always pray before going to bed and I don't always pray for divine appointments, but God was so gracious and faithful to answer my prayer! I was in such awe and couldn't stop worshipping God for how great and Sovereign he is! Although my friend didn't put his faith in Jesus, please continue to pray for him, that he'll believe in God who accepts him if he puts his faith and trust in Him!