God uses everything.

Today, He is using my capacity to miss details.

I spent years in a toxic relationship with the New York City Department of Finance.

I always felt like they were just not that into me.

They paid me a lot of attention. And I paid them a lot of tickets.

So in the modern era, I document everything with my car.

Occasionally I get to send the city notes that shows that I paid the meter they ticketed me for missing.

At some point I may start sending them as videos with soundtracks. Current frontrunners include Alanis Morissette, Christian Aguilera, and Tupac.

They bottom line is the city has taught me to focus and bring receipts. All things work together for good.

So this week I made a note of street and address where I parked.

I noted what day I would need to move it

I set an alarm for 9:45am to get outside by 10am.

I checked everything, except what day it was.

It’s Diwali. And alternate side is suspended.

So my first guiding error is not checking the details.

Since I’m outside, I decide to take two things off my to do list. I need to walk for an hour. And I need to pray for an hour.

So I’m prayer walking through Queens.

And because I possess an elite time management strategy called “dividing by two”, I’m gonna walk out 30 and back 30.

But after 20 minutes, it starts to rain, so I turn around.

Now, I kinda figured it was going to rain when I got outside and looked at the sky. Weather.com, however, said otherwise. I trusted them, and started walking.

So my second guiding error is trusting my weather app over my eyes.

I’m halfway back to the house and a woman says grace and peace!

Now, she startles me. I’m not expecting company, and for a second, I don’t know who it is.

And I’m thinking I probably look like a lunatic, because my rain-imminent prayer walk may look a fair amount like “walking briskly while muttering to myself.”

But I get a few steps further, and realize that not only do I know who it is, it’s someone from the ministry I’m supposed to reach out to. We’ve probably never spoken, but there is a specific assignment here.

So I circle back, confirm that I’m not crazy, and have the conversation I’ve been intending to have, along with some details that have made me think about things I am and am not doing with my life.

It’s always a gift when a person you’ve never spoken with, and were not expecting to see says something random that you would put on a vision board if you had one.

Then she shares, among other things, that she was not even supposed to be here, but a vital appointment that would normally have occurred in her neighborhood inexplicably forced her to travel to mine.

So my third guiding error is offices that refuse to accommodate their customers.

This one’s not even mine, but I’m benefitting nonetheless.

And I’m not too surprised, because the same thing happened to me last week, and also led to a good result. I’ll call it an urban blessing.

We can spend all our time lamenting the headaches that ambush us.

If we pay attention, though, we may start to notice when we’re apprehending favor.

So for now, in the words of John Lee Hooker, I’m gonna keep on walking.

In the words of The Jackson Southernaires, I’m gonna keep on praying.

And in the words of Jesus and REO Speedwagon, I’m gonna keep on loving you.

I pray all make all your divine appointments today.

And I thank God for the surprises that are yet to come.

Stay gold, beloved.