required to trust

Today I went to church, but not the service I had been planning on. Yesterday 'plan A' was to go to an early service then spend the day relaxing at a nice hotel, turning off my phone and taking in some western world luxury. But I woke up to flat gray clouds, and I was proven right in my choice to abandon the hotel - it rained much of the afternoon. So instead I slept in and went to my normal 10am church service. I almost left early to get some shopping done, get in some lunch so I could get back before the rain, but I stuck to the end to meet up with some new friends I'd met a couple of weeks ago. I got to the grocery store as the rain started, and decided to wait it out at the local pizza place - maybe the rain would pass by the time my brick over pizza was finished.

I found two of my new friends at the pizza place and sat down with them to wait for our pizzas. They are both my age and year in school, both went to Alabama (I said "Roll Tide?" to make sure I knew what school they were talking about, and they said "yup!"), the guy almost went to Wheaton, and almost went to law school, and both had been to Uganda before and were working with an orphanage and other ministries around the city.

We were talking about our experiences here in Uganda, and it came up some of the dangers of living here, how we've all had our places broken in to, how we've all seen boda accidents. They told me that two years ago they went to an Ethiopian restaurant to watch the World Cup final; they arrived late for a fluke reason and didn't get their usual table, instead were put into a side room separated from the main room by a wall. The restaurant happened to be one of two places bombed by terrorists that night, that killed something like 75 people, Ugandans and Westerners and injured many many more. But in that back room, where they were seated, their whole group of 7 people were unscathed. Even people closer to the door were injured, but they escaped the blast.

God was in control of every event that day leading to their safety and to their testimony, but really, he was in control of every event that day, events that led to a terrorist attack. It's obvious He had a greater purpose for them, the initial inspection shows God's sovereignty and how he protects us. But there were hundreds of people not so fortunate, victims of a terrorist attack. What do we do with that? It's not too hard to follow a train of thought to randomness and chaos, and it's much harder to figure out God's plan in it all. But then I think to even today, and how it was not in my original plan but God's that I even have lunch with these two. And sometimes God lets us connect the dots and see his plan and give him glory for its goodness, and other times we're kept in the dark, required to trust.