Walk This Way

Author: Rodney Olsen.

We often hear of people being in the right place at the right time. When we talk about those ‘right place, right time’, moments we’re generally thinking of something good happening for someone just because they were where they needed to be to take advantage of a particular situation or opportunity. It’s as if circumstances came together to bring about something good.

Those moments are generally viewed in the light of their benefit to us. They’re about something good happening for us and those close to us.

But what about being in the right place at the right time to do someone else good?

While it’s human nature to be looking out for circumstances that might work in our favour, I wonder if we actively seek the opportunity to bring a benefit to others. Do we seek opportunity to benefit people we don’t even know?

People of faith tend to talk about how God has blessed them. There’s an understanding that good things come from God’s hands but aren’t we meant to be God’s hands to others? Do we pay any attention to the opportunities God sends our way to do good to other people?

If we truly believe that God has provided for us in some way do we really believe that it’s only for our benefit?

The following passage from Ephesians talks about the incredible way that God not only brought good out of bad but actually turned death into life. It points out that it’s all from God rather than from our own efforts.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:1-10

The first thing that jumps out to me is that we’re already in the right place at the right time to receive this incredible gift from God that flows to us because of his great mercy and love for us.

But there’s more.

We have been created in Christ Jesus for ‘good works’. We’ve been put together by the master craftsman to do good and the good works we’re meant to be doing have already been prepared for us to do. Our task is to ‘walk in them’.

The last verse talks about us being crafted and created for a purpose. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for a purpose. That purpose is ‘good works’. The good works don’t save us, the previous verse makes that very clear, but our ‘right place, right time, moment should lead us to create more right place, right time moments for others.

It seems to me that if we’re meant to be ‘walking in good works’ that have already been ‘prepared beforehand for us’, we should pay some attention to opportunities to do just that. The good news is that the path has already been set before us so we need to be in tune with God as we actively seek to be in the right place at the right time to bring about something good for our family, for our friends, for strangers.

I wonder how different our lives would look if instead of only praying for God to bless us and to give us the things we want in life, we prayed for God to bless others through us. Maybe we need to ask God daily to show us the good works he has prepared beforehand for us to do on this day and for him to give us all we need to walk in those good works.