08/01/2026
When you begin to recognize the voice of God and start truly listening to the Holy Spirit, your life begins to make sense in ways it never did before.
This past Thursday, my kids and I were catching a connecting flight home from Raleigh to Philly after visiting family. Our flight kept getting delayed, two hours at a time. An older man, 84 but looking decades younger, sat beside me, and the Holy Spirit nudged me: “Talk to him. Get to know him. Share the gospel.”
I had school and work waiting for me to work on in the airport, but this man’s soul and eternal destiny mattered more. Over hours of conversation, I learned he believed in Jesus and had even visited the tomb in Israel where Jesus resurrected from the grave, but he was trusting his own morality and faithfulness to earn favor with God. I got to walk him through the gospel: it’s not by works of righteousness we’ve done, but by grace alone (Titus 3:5). I used the illustration of a criminal standing before a judge saying, “I only broke the law once, but I’ve been faithful ever since,” yet James 2:10 makes clear that breaking the law at one point makes us guilty of all of it. I also used the example of the thief on the cross, who did no works of righteousness and was never baptized, yet Jesus told him, “Today you will be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43), simply because he trusted Jesus as God. Only the blood of Christ justifies and restores us. And we don’t have to hope we’ll make it, 1 John 5:13 tells us we can know we have eternal life.
After seven hours of delays with no promised flight, the Spirit prompted me to rent a car and drive 7.5 hours home instead so my sons and I could make it to work Friday morning. We arrived at 2:45 a.m., only to learn the original flight had landed a couple hours after we’d left.
Friday, I returned the rental car to Enterprise and realized I’d left my laptop battery in the console. Saturday morning, the Spirit prompted me again: go back, and share your testimony about Dillon with whoever was at the counter. When I got there and went in with many other things on my mind I had forgotten to bring it in. I went back out and I had two versions of my printed testimony, but the Spirit was clear, take Dillon’s Journey specifically.
The man at the counter, in his thirties, hadn’t even been working at the time I returned the car the day before. He shared that he had two siblings with special needs who’d spent much of their lives at CHOP, his 36 year old sister passed away in 2024, and his 40 year old brother is still living. I got to share a piece of our journey with Dillon, and how God has carried our family through it. He listened intently and asked several questions relating in a way only special needs families and caregivers can. It was unmistakably clear, God orchestrated every delay, every forgotten item, every detour, just to put me in that exact spot at that exact moment for these two specific men.
Sometimes you wonder why a flight is delayed nine hours, why you have to rent a car, why you forget something small. But God designs these things with precision. His plans are far beyond what we can see in the moment. I pray I stay sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading, and I pray the same for all of you who know Him and those of you who long to know Him to come. Jesus is the only Way, the Truth, and the Life. Trust in him today! “The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
Revelation 22:17, 20
https://bible.com/bible/59/rev.22.17.ESV
