I love all the “just in time” stories in the Bible. Not the war stories where angels swoop in and kill all the bad guys. (Or confuse them into killing one another.) Those are cool. But I’m talking about the routine moments that suddenly turn into divine appointments. Take the Shunnamite woman, for instance. (2 Kings, chapter 8)

Earlier in her life, the woman had offered hospitality to the prophet, Elisha. In gratitude, Elisha asked his servant to find out how he could pray for the woman. Turns out, she was barren. So, Elisha prayed, and a son was born the next year. As all life stories go, though, hers had some trouble. The boy died when he was just a child. The woman hurried to find Elisha. He prayed (rather dramatically) and the boy came back to life!

By this time, I think you could call Elisha and the Shunnamite woman friends. Later, Elisha warned her that God was sending a severe famine in the land. He told her to pack up her family and move out of the country. They lost everything when they left, of course. But that was better than starvation. When the famine ended after seven years, the woman decided to go to the king and beg to get her home back.

The king just happened to be visiting that day with the former servant of the prophet Elisha. “Tell me some of the great things Elisha did,” the king said. So, the servant told him about the day Elisha prayed for a dead boy and he came back to life. At that exact moment, the Shunnamite woman walked through the door. The king was so thrilled by the story and the coincidence that he said, “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now.”

I love that! It is like winning Publisher’s Clearinghouse when you didn’t even enter! And how miraculous of God to work it all out. I mean, what if the woman had been stuck in caravan traffic behind a slow camel or something and been an hour later coming in? What if Elisha’s servant had chosen the floating ax head story or the fire from Heaven display instead? What if, the woman had gone home in despair and lived like a beggar the rest of her days instead of risking an audience with the king?

True stories like this remind me that my divine moment could be just through the next door. Or the one after that. And I’m determined to keep walking through every one of them. Just in case.