048 Finding God in Unexpected Places (5 Great Stories)

Elijah searched for God in a whirlwind but found him in a whisper. Jacob found him in his dreams, Moses in a burning bush, and Mary Magdalene looked for him in a tomb but found him standing behind her. God always seems to turn up in unexpected places. Here are five contemporary stories to show you what I mean.

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In an Isolated Tribe

I’ve shared this in Unseen Footprints before, but it’s worth telling again. It comes from a missionary named Ben Staggs about his first visit to the Boshu people, an extremely isolated group in Ethiopia’s Me’en territory. On arrival, Ben and his team were welcomed by a local named Golon Kabule. ‘We sat down and spoke a bit,’ Ben says, ‘explaining that we had come to tell them of “God’s talk”. I described who God is, what He is like, and where He lives.’

But Golon interrupted. ‘We must follow Christosi,’ he said, using the Me’en word for Christ. Astonished, as Christ’s name hadn’t even been mentioned, Ben asked where Golon had heard that name. Golon explained that Christ had appeared to him in a dream, told him it was he who had given Golon his life, blood and bones, and that Golon was to follow him. Christ then said that in just five days someone would come to tell him about following that path.

Ben and his team had landed on the fifth day.

On a Park Bench

‘In 2001 I was feeling suicidal after my marriage broke down,’ Alejandra told me. ‘After two years of separation, the divorce papers were being drawn up. I asked my mother to watch my children so I could be alone. She sensed I was in a dangerous place and suggested we go shopping instead. I had no energy to shop, so I stayed outside on a bench and contemplated the different ways I could end my life and stop the heartache I was feeling.

‘Then a woman came and sat down next to me. “Are you a Christian?” she asked. I said I was. Then she said, “I just want to tell you that if you are a follower of Jesus you are more than a conqueror in him.” Bam! Those words breathed life into me. All thoughts of suicide left me and God’s unexplainable peace rushed in.

‘My husband and I will celebrate 26 years of marriage this year.’

In a Car

‘Some years ago, my first marriage broke down,’ Barry told me. ‘Bewildered at how it happened and feeling abandoned, I sat in my car one day punching the steering wheel, screaming in pain. Then suddenly, abruptly, startlingly, I realised that God was with me. In all my humiliation and sorrow and anger and grief, God was there.

‘God shows up even when we don’t expect or deserve God’s presence.’

In a Hospital Ward

Virginia told me about a struggle she once had with an eating disorder, triggered by a difficult break-up. At her worst point she ended up in the hospital, weighing just eighty pounds (thirty-six kilograms). There she met another girl—the sickest patient in the ward, who weighed a mere fifty-five pounds (twenty-five kilograms).

‘This girl scribbled a Bible verse on a piece of paper and handed it to me,’ Virginia said. ‘It was Philippians 4:13: “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength”. As a result of her doing that, I became a Christian, got healthy, and ultimately got married and had a family.’

In a Trash Pile

I’ve told this story before too, shared it on BBC Radio 2, and include a shortened version here because it will always be one of my favourite ‘finding God in unexpected places’ stories. It happened to Ali, who I met when she started visiting our Friday night prayer group. Ali soon became a friend, and started praying herself.

Ali loved visiting antique shops. One day while browsing one, she came across a beautiful old Singer-style sewing machine—the manual kind, mounted on a table with a foot pedal. When she saw it she whispered a simple prayer: ‘God, I’d love something like that for my place.’

The Bible portrays God as a gift-giving God. But there’s a big difference between praying for a need and praying for an antique sewing machine, don’t you think? Ali wasn’t praying for food, safety, or even divine forgiveness. Her request was a child-like wish to a God she was just becoming acquainted with. I’m not even sure how serious her prayer was.

A couple of days later, Ali was walking out her front door on her way to work when she saw a pile of junk by the roadside. She stopped, stunned. There in the rubbish stood an old Singer-style sewing machine—the manual kind, mounted on a table with a foot pedal. On it hung a sign that said:

“Perfect condition—please take.”

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God is a God of surprises. He visits us incognito. He whispers to us. And as Ben, Ali, Virginia, Alejandra and Barry discovered, he can be found everywhere – even in the most unexpected places.

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