Uncanny Coincidence

Coincidence. Have you ever experienced coincidences that make you gasp in wonder or cause you to ponder life's bigger meaning and the existence of God?

For example, have you ever been thinking you must call a friend for coffee, and a few minutes or hours later the same friend calls you to invite you to coffee? Does spirit unite us in ways we can't even begin to imagine?

I picked up a friend at the airport. We were going to meet him in the CBD, as he was going to catch a bus, as the plane's arrival coincided with the end of the school day, and it was therefore impossible for us to make it to the airport on time to pick him up. I prayed he would arrive safely, and a bit later I checked his flight details. The flight was delayed for an hour and a half, and would arrive at the exact time I had said I would be able to pick him up, making allowance for the end of the school day. How amazing is that?!

Take another example; I have been mulling over the question of the Sabbath. Do Christians need to honour the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, or not? And what does honour mean? I can't answer all of that, but again, coincidence pops up, as I dropped a friend off at a busy restaurant strip on a Friday late afternoon, and paid for parking, and only then remembered that I might have paid for parking when the Sabbath had already started. I checked my parking ticket and it said the parking expired at 6:54pm. Oh well, I thought, I made a mistake and must have encroached on Sabbath time. I checked the time of sunset when I got home, as Sabbath lasts from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, and I saw that the Sabbath started at 6:55pm. My paid parking ended the minute before Sabbath started!

I have been experiencing coincidences recently where something happens in my life and then the same thing happens in a friend's life. Uncanny. I have yet to discover what this means though. And of course, is there a meaning, or is it just, yep you guessed it, random coincidence?! Or I might have a discourse about a subject with someone, and then read a newspaper article dealing with the exact same topic, which aids my understanding. There have been occasions when I have metaphorically kicked myself because I have read an article that showed me how I might have better dealt with a particular topic and I've wished I had read it sooner, but at least it was a lesson learnt.

What about happenings where we might disregard advice or follow through on something in spite of our first experience. This is not quite coincidence you might say, yet perhaps it is, as the first incident was a moment of coincidence, pointing the path one might have taken. Take the example of a man arrested for a murder, using a gun that he obtained a license for earlier in the year, yet on further investigation the police discover the first application for the gun was turned down. If the first experience had been accepted, would the murder have ever happened? What about the example where police are called to a domestic dispute hours before a murder, and might have prevented the murder from ever happening if strong action had been taken at the time of the first call? Chance moments of opportunity may be wasted. Unfortunately it is often only with hindsight, if ever, that we may realise an opportunity was forfeit. Do we sometimes follow our own paths so strongly that we disregard gentle moments of guidance, often disguised as coincidence?

Watch out for coincidences in your life. You may be surprised at how often coincidence pops up. Are there lessons for you to learn from your own moments of coincidence?