The Lost Ring and the Soveriengty of God

I was on my way to Florida for Christmas and as I went through the metal detector, I took off the ring that I was wearing and placed it in the box along with my other items. This was a ring that my mom had given me when I turned 18, and it was very important to me. I’m not even sure why I took it off because it is made of white gold with black Onyx and a diamond in the center, nothing that would set off a metal detector. I don’t wear it very often out of fear of losing it. As a matter of fact I don’t remember the last time that I had it out of its box, tucked away in the drawer of my desk. In my hurriedness to get out of the way, I left it in the container. It was with all of my other stuff, but somehow went overlooked. I was halfway across the airport when I realized it. So I gathered my bags and hoofed it back to the security station. They didn’t know anything about it and told me that they would page over the intercom if it was found. I walked away sad because I figured that it was lost forever. I made it all the way back to gate C20 to hear what I thought was the tail end of a page. All that I heard was “lost….return to the security checkpoint”. So I turned around and made my way back to the metal detectors. As I got there I was greeted by one of the security personnel. She asked me to describe my ring to her, and so I did. She happily handed it to me and I thanked her. What happened next was what I believe to be the whole reason why this happened. In the excitement of everything, I forgot that in my shirt pocket I had a stack of million dollar bill gospel tracts. I try to do this because people will actually ask what you have in your pocket. That makes it very simple to hand them out. Most people will thank you. I always tell them: “there is a Christian message on the back, make sure you read it”. So as I am putting my ring on, the male security guard says, “those look fake” and he pointed to my pocket. So I pulled the tracts out and handed them both one. They thanked me, and then the woman walked over and showed one of the passengers coming through the line and I was able to give him one also. All the commotion must have gotten the attention of the police officer on duty because he was sizing me up as I walked away. (mind you he had seen me four times at this point) So I said merry Christmas and handed him one also. Here is the point to this whole story. God is sovereign, and I believe with all my heart that He knew exactly who was to get the good news of the gospel. Out of all the thousands of people in the airport, these four people were in God's Crosshairs. I have no idea who these people are, but I can tell you this. Besides the officer, this was a completely different group that was on duty when I came through originally and when I went back the first time. Just as the ring that I lost was precious to me, these souls that I crossed paths with today were precious to God. I pray that all who received a tract from my pocket today would repent and come to faith in Christ, and that He would receive all the glory showing that He can use even “[i]the poorest material He has”, me.

[i] From; “Not my will” Francena H. Arnold