I’m currently helping my aunt move and she has been panicking about the apartment not being as she expected. The apartment is smaller than she thought it would be and she has been upset about it. As she frantically called her landlord to try to move somewhere else, neighbors began to arrive at her door bringing water and words of greeting. One even offered to walk her dog. The too-small apartment is now full of love and neighborly kindness.
When my life doesn’t go the way I expect, I often mistake the hand of God for inconvenience, annoyance, and loss rather than what it often is—a gift in disguise. We don’t recognize Jesus or his work when we don’t leave ourselves open to be flexible and receptive to the unexpected. That is exactly the situation that Peter and the disciples found themselves in when Jesus appeared to them in John 21.
When have you experienced something as inconvenient that turned out to be God working in unexpected ways?