Divine Appointments #16

Hosts Dan, Terry, and Brian talk about Divine Appointments!

They will help you live your life with purpose, change someone’s life for the better and leave a lasting impact on those around you. Everyone starts the race... but only the Fearless Finish Strong!
 
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Transcript

Dan Wheeler: 0:02

Check this out. I'm wearing a Detroit Lions jacket. Guy, a guy coming first

Terry Steen: 0:07

problem right there.

Brian Roland: 0:08

I really should have been a brown.

Dan Wheeler: 0:10

Yeah. But it started this conversation because this guy comes up it goes, Well, you're kind of bold wearing a lions jacket. We have this whole conversation. He's a big sports fan. He said, Well, are you retired? And I said, Yes. But that I had started a ministry. We talked a lot about faith. I told him about our Facebook page, and that we were doing a podcast. And as he listened, he looked at me and he said, You know, I need faith in my life. But it was such a good conversation. And it all started because I was wearing a Detroit Lions jacket,

Brian Roland: 0:43

See that? God can use anything.

John Matarazzo: 0:45

Live your life with purpose, change someone's life for the better, and leave a lasting impact on those around you. Welcome to finish strong, the podcast designed to help you discover your unique purpose and develop a plan to leave a powerful legacy. In this episode, Dan, Bryan and Terry talk about divine appointments. So let's get started.

Dan Wheeler: 1:05

Do you believe that God cares about you and actually influences your life? on a day to day basis? Do you think that God is sovereign and yet helps to orchestrate the events of mankind? I believe that God intervenes in the affairs of men and and that's why we pray. My name is Dan Wheeler. And I'm co hosting this podcast with my buddies, Terry Steen and Brian Rowland, John Matarazzo, is operating the ship steering the ship as our producer. But we all believe that God really gets involved. You know, there's a philosophy that God started the universe he created it, created the earth created man, and then just kind of walked away. He has certain universal principles like the law of gravity, but he really doesn't stay involved. I know from my own life and my own experiences that that's not true. And guys, when you look at scripture, there are so many examples in the Bible, in Genesis 24, when they were looking for a wife for Isaac, you know, God told them what to look for it told Abraham servant, Genesis 32, we read about Jacob wrestling with an angel he had an appointment, God intervened. In x 10, a Roman centurion had a dream about a man named Peter. And Scripture tells us to look for these divine appointments that you never know. You might think you're entertaining or talking to a man and you might be talking to an angel. So the more that we expect God to do this, the more sensitive we are to his promptings. Now we're going to talk to you about divine appointments. We've all had Terry had a divine appointment that changed his life forever. Oh, yeah. And I was there. It was in college. And it was a joke. It was a double dog dare. And a terrier that changed your life. If you just want to tease it a little bit.

Terry Steen: 3:09

You better believe it? I didn't know it at the time. But it's been very impacting over the years.

Dan Wheeler: 3:15

And Brian, you never worked for a job or you like Maynard g Krebs. You didn't like to work

Brian Roland: 3:21

for a job on a job at a job? No. It's let's just leave it at that. I'll talk about that a little bit later. But it is yes, it's I'd never worked for a job

Dan Wheeler: 3:34

for a job. But he worked on the job. And I'm going to talk to you about a doctor that had the schedule suddenly changed. And he took a wrong turn to the cafeteria. And then he realized God had delayed him. Because he had a divine appointment with me. And it definitely was a divine appointment. So Brian, there's so much to talk about where do we begin?

Brian Roland: 3:55

Well, let's begin at the beginning. Does God intervene in our affairs? What do you think, Dan?

Dan Wheeler: 4:00

I think definitely, we've all had experiences. I've had experiences where I knew it wasn't a coincidence. I think a lot of people say, well, that could have been a coincidence. Now, especially as Beth was getting ready to leave this world. I saw so many miracles, the timing, God's timing, you know, when it's God now, sometimes you don't recognize it at the time. And we'll talk about that later. But sometimes, you know, it's God. And I definitely had that happen. And I'm going to talk to you about a little bit later on with the doctor who had his schedule change so that he could have an appointment with me.

Terry Steen: 4:34

I agree to you know, how does he not enter intervene in our affairs and if you go to Scripture, and you

read Psalm 37: 4:40

23, it says, the steps of a good man or a righteous man are ordered by God. It tells us in Scripture, that he is ordered every step we take. So there's no question in my mind that he intervenes in our affair.

Brian Roland: 4:59

You know, it's on people that are saying that God just created the universe and walked away. I mean, there are basic laws that are intact, but God doesn't get personally involved. So that keeps thinking this. But over in James 516, it talks about the forbidden intellectual prayer of a righteous man. And it says right there, therefore, confess your sins to each other, and pray for each others, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. So God is Aries listening. He didn't just create the universe and walked away. He is part of our lives every day, and he's watching over everything that is happening around us and to us and through us.

Dan Wheeler: 5:36

Yeah. And if you go on to the next verse, verse 17, of James five, Elijah was a man just like us, he prayed earnestly that it would not rain. And it didn't rain on the land for three and a half years. Well, again, he prayed, and the heavens gave rain. So obviously God hears prayers. And there's many times the Old Testament where God had his mind changed because of people's prayers.

Brian Roland: 5:59

It's true. It happened. Hezekiah about he was told he was going to die. And he cried out to God, and God extended his days. I mean, he changed his mind because he told him he was going to be gone. And then he prayed, and God extended him. But well, Terry, there's there's some other examples I know that are in the Bible. What do you what do you find?

Terry Steen: 6:18

Yeah, and and Dan mentioned the Abraham servant, but I was thinking about Philip in Acts, the eighth chapter, if you remember the story of Philip meeting the Ethiopian eunuch, because there's three things that he did that I think we need to do if we want to truly benefit from a divine appointment. The first thing is, he opened his heart, he listened, he allowed the Holy Spirit. And an angel literally came and told him to go south along a desert road from Jerusalem to Gaza. So we did. So then what's the next thing that happened? He opened his ears to listen. And that's what we have to do. Because the spirit literally told him to go up to the chariot and walk beside it and listen. And so then he was listening to this unic as he was reading the Scripture. And so the third thing is Philip opened his mouth. So he had to open his heart, open his ears, open his mouth, he got up in the chariot, he explained the Scripture and led the eunuch to the Lord.

Dan Wheeler: 7:24

I was reading that story just the other day, and it is powerful. And that was a divine appointment. There are divine appointments. throughout Scripture. I realized, the more I read about Jesus, and the more I experienced his presence in my life, that I need to pray every day for divine appointments, and I've started doing that guys. I pray in the morning, I said, Lord, if there's someone that I can help today, please put them in my path. Please help my my path to cross with them. And I had one. Not long ago, I said a grocery store. Check this out. I'm wearing a Detroit Lions jacket on a guy. A guy comes

Terry Steen: 8:03

That's your first problem, right there!

Brian Roland: 8:05

there. really should have been a brown.

Dan Wheeler: 8:07

Yeah. But it started this conversation because this guy comes up and goes, Well, you're kind of bold wearing a lions jacket, out here in the Philadelphia area. And I go, I know I'm long suffering. We haven't had a great team. Well, practically ever. I barely remember what and I said, but at least my Michigan Wolverines beat Michigan State last night in basketball, he goes well, thanks. I'm a Michigan State fan. In fact, the guy had gone to Michigan State. We have this whole conversation. He's a big sports fan. And he asked me how I had moved out to the Philadelphia area. And I told him about my job at QVC. And he was fascinated with that. And then he said that he came out here for a job the same way from from Michigan. And then he said, Well, are you retired? And I said, Yes, that I'd retired from my main job at QVC. But that I had started a ministry, and that we talked a lot about faith and Christianity. And I told him about our Facebook page, and that we were doing a podcast. And as he listened, he looked at me and he said, You know, I need faith in my life. And I don't have it. And I said, well, let's have a cup of coffee or lunch together. Let's talk about I'd love to share it with you. And I gave him my number. And I'm praying that any day now he'll call but it was such a good conversation. And it all started because I was wearing a Detroit Lions jacket.

Brian Roland: 9:35

Yeah, God can use anything.

Dan Wheeler: 9:36

Yeah, he sure can

Terry Steen: 9:37

That's proof, a donkey or a Detroit Lions Jacket. Yeah, very similar.

Dan Wheeler: 9:44

Well, you mentioned a donkey. Let's go to that story in Luke, chapter 19, verse 30, and I'm just gonna read these five verses to you. Jesus was talking to his disciples and He said, Go to the village ahead of you. As you enter it, you will find a cold tide there, which no one has ever written. untie it and bring it here. If anyone asked you, why are you on tying it, tell him, the Lord needs it. Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them, as they were untied the coal, its owners ask them, why are you on time the cold, they replied, The Lord's needs it. And they brought it to Jesus through their cloaks on the colt, and put Jesus on it. I mean, that cold that meeting, all arranged in the Lord told them it was going to happen. Sometimes we need to believe that God is going to open up these divine appointments and look for him when they happen. Yeah, Brian,

Brian Roland: 10:41

You know, I think about this, and the person that owned the coal. He didn't complain, he didn't. He didn't back down. The Lord needs that he knew who the Lord was. And I wonder if he had the Lord have spoken to him or goddess booked him saying, put your coal here, it's going to be used for a special reason, or someone needs it. And when you're going to be surprised when you find out who Yeah,

Dan Wheeler: 11:01

hey, Terry, how do we know? When we have a divine appointment? What are some of the things we can look for?

Terry Steen: 11:07

Well, you know, divine appointments, they, they typically don't always happen when we want him to, but he, God knows when we need to have them. And many times they're at the end of our ability or when we're stressed when we need peace. God can provide it.

Dan Wheeler: 11:25

You know, that happened to me, Terry, when Beth was really getting bad the hospital and I knew it was serious. And suddenly, that day, everything changed. And I was just overwhelmed. My daughters, were there a front of the bus were there. And Kiersten looked at me and said, Dad, please go take a break. You've been staying here nonstop morning, noon, and night, still working and QVC going and hosting your shows. And I said, You're right. And I walked to the elevator. And luckily, the elevator was empty when the doors open. But as soon as the doors closed, I just lost it. All my emotions came out. I was just weeping. I got off on the first floor, I leaned against the wall. And I was just I was at the end of my abilities. I was at the end of everything I had. And I hear someone say Mr. Wheeler, Mr. Wheeler, and I look up and it was this doctor, oh, who was a Christian, that I know God arranged for us that he would treat birth, he treated her with such compassion. He said, What's wrong? And I said, Doctor, oh, I'm just overwhelmed. I mean, things are not looking good for Beth and that lady, she's she means everything to me. And he said, I said, I really am just wondering, and I need to know that God's answering my prayers, and he says, Oh, really? He said, Well, look, this might help you. Let me tell you something that happened to me just now. He said, I have over 20 patients waiting for me. And I am never late ever. When I make my rounds. I was right at this elevator about two to three minutes ago. And something told me to turn around and go back to the cafeteria. He said, I walked all the way back to the cafeteria. I got there. And I thought, What am I doing? I got to get these patients. As I came walking up the hall. And I saw you get off the elevator and the fact that you were crying. I knew God had me here for you. And he has me here right now. To tell you yes, God hears your prayers. He hears every one of them. Yeah. And he said, Dan, you know, Jesus, and he said, Jesus is either going to heal Beth, through, you know, a medical miracle. And we'll all celebrate, or it's going to ultimately heal her and take her home. Either way, you know, she's going to have a total healing. And then it got on the elevator and left and I was blown away. You talked about knowing it was a divine appointment.

Brian Roland: 13:47

Yeah,

Terry Steen: 13:47

it was I just I started crying. I walked out. I said, God, you care enough about me to intersect and change this doctor schedule, so that you could speak through him? It was it was amazing. Oh, that's that's a great story. You know, I was talking to my wife at lunch today. And I was telling her what we were talking about divine appointments. And we both remembered back a number of years ago, she was decided one of her goals in life was to get her master's degree, but she had been out of school so long, she did not have a confidence to do it. She was afraid to do it. But she began to work toward that and she's so she's studying for the test that you have to take to pass to get into the master's program, study and study and study and very fearful and doesn't think she can pass it. She took a little break opened up an art book where she loves art and she was looking through Norman Rockwell pictures. And one of the lines said that Norman Rockwell was a cathartic artist. And his artwork was cathartic. And she's going one In the world does that mean but she didn't look it up, she went to bed that night could not go to sleep. And she kept thinking about that. So she got up, looked it up in the dictionary, that it means universal, went back to sleep. This was the night before the test. She goes that next day to take the test, she opens up the test, the very first question on the test is what is the definition of Catholic?

Brian Roland: 15:31

Wow.

Terry Steen: 15:32

And she was flooded with peace that God was right there. He gave her a pat on the back saying, I got this rest in me. It was such a neat story.

Brian Roland: 15:46

You know, there. It's amazing how that God works in that way. Dan had an appointment like that with a real person. Karen's came through a book like that, and God's speaking to her and kept her awake to she went looked it up. In my case where I've never had a job was that

Dan Wheeler: 16:04

I never had to work for a job you had, you've had jobs,

Brian Roland: 16:08

never had to work for a job. It's that I've applied for jobs, but never got the jobs I applied for every job that I've had was somebody calling or it just opened up. And I thought about it, it kind of hit me this thing about the other day, I'm going well, let's see, I was applying for this thing. Good plan for that didn't get it. But when I started thinking back all the way when I got out of college, my first job was Dan and I both worked at a TV station in Missouri. And the general manager I walked in one day just to see some friends there and he offered me the job. And then I went to visit the home bards that Rex Humbert up at the cathedral tomorrow, and just saw with my pastor from my church just to walk in and see the facilities, I heard how beautiful they were, and I got offered a job. And then I get a call Go To TV 38 in Chicago, never, never applied for it is all just happen one after the other like that, until my whole career until I retired. That to me is a divine appointment that God had my life already planned where he wanted me as much as I screwed up in every location. He wanted me there to go to the next place to learn something to move on to the next place.

Terry Steen: 17:13

So Brian, what you're saying is in all these situations, they didn't know you very well. Did they?

Brian Roland: 17:19

Not really?

Dan Wheeler: 17:22

Yeah,

Terry Steen: 17:22

it's all starting to make sense now.

Brian Roland: 17:24

Yeah. So I think you can see there wasn't internet then. Yeah.

Dan Wheeler: 17:30

So Terry, what are some other signs that help us know, what's a divine appointment, you mentioned, that often happens where at the end of our ability,

Terry Steen: 17:37

well, just like you're experiencing Karen's experience, you know, he can turn to stress into peace. He can change our perspective, when we're fearful. Just like in Karen's case, she was so afraid. And then God's favor took over, she passed the test, completed her master's degree, and accomplished what she wanted to so everything can change through a divine appointment.

Dan Wheeler: 18:03

Yeah. And you witnessed that you were on a mission trip one time, something amazing happened.

Terry Steen: 18:10

Oh, it was unbelievable. We had rented some renter racks for rental cars. And we were going to a service one night that we were supposed to be doing group of us on this trip. And we had a flat tire right in front of us store. And so we thought, Oh my goodness. And so we didn't have the equipment right then to fix it. We had to wait for someone to come and we knew we were going to miss the service or a large part of it. There was a lady up on the porch of this store that we stopped in front of she came down, we started talking and interacting with her and shared with her what we were doing. And to make a long story short, by the end of that evening and conversation, we led this lady to the Lord because of a flat tire. Later, we find out that this lady was one of the prostitutes on the island. And it was so incredible how God used that flat tire and that divine appointment to bring salvation.

Dan Wheeler: 19:10

Amen. We have to believe for divine appointments, we have to expect them. Faith involves expectation. And we read that in john 11. When we're reading about the story of Lazarus and Mary and Martha, we're like you know Jesus, if you had come earlier, you could have saved Lazarus he was dying. But Jesus delayed two days after he found out the news so that he might glorify God and before he raised Lazarus, he said to to Mary, actually to Martha, he said Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God. Now think about that. Christ reversed what we normally say Seeing is believing. But he said believing is seeing we have to believe and look for those divine appointments. And Brian in the book of Daniel, we read About a divine appointment, that I'm sure did not go the way the Hebrew children were wanting.

Brian Roland: 20:07

That's true. Daniel 3:16 through 18 tells us about shadrach, meshach and abednego. And you know, well, I'll read it real quick. King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this manner, they want him to bow down if you are, if we are to be thrown into a blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of God of gold that you have set up. And the thing is, though, is they went with their belief that their God was real that he was with them. And while he was there in the furnace, they looked in there and they didn't see three they saw four. So talk about a divine appointment. They're walking around all this flames and smoking that and here comes some guy looking up doing this is Jesus, he's in there with them. And then with the king, think about that. It's like I haven't people worshipping me, and God is real. And Jesus in your wisdom, they came out of that alive. They didn't even smell like smoke. And God just read through the whole situation was with him through that divine appointment in the fiery furnace.

Dan Wheeler: 21:17

In the fiery furnace and amazing story of a divine appointment. Terry, you've got kind of a fun one. We're getting near the end here. It was a double dog dare in college, I was in on it. And I'll never forget it, but your life definitely changed forever.

Terry Steen: 21:33

Yeah, we talked about how we would know about a divine appointment. This one I didn't recognize right away, it took some time to unfold. A bunch of us guys are at an outdoor concert on the ground of the college campus. And we're double dog daring each other to do things and if you know anything about a double dog dare as Dan does. Whoa, whoa, never did not fulfill a double dog. No, no, that is serious stuff serious. So we were trying to do crazy things. And somebody said, okay, Terry, and they looked around and they saw this girl walking down the sidewalk. She's like, hundreds of yards away, going into one of the dorms down at the end of the campus. And they said hey, talk to that girl, a double dog dare you to talk to her. So I took off on a sprint trying to get there before I'd lose her in the dorms. And I I was made gaining ground gaining ground ground gaining ground. And just before she went into the dope, the dorm room or the dorm, I caught up to her, I slowed down walked pastor opened the door to let her go in and said Hi, how are you? And she said something to the effect of fine. She walked through, I shut the door and walk back the other way. I'm sure she's going what kind of idiot is this? And so by this time, I'm hearing this herd of six or eight other guys that are running down saying Did you talk to her? I said yes. And they said we don't believe you. They run inside a cost this woman just to make sure that I talked to her. And that was the first time I ever met my wife Karen. What a divine appointment.

Brian Roland: 23:26

All Terry's appointments have to do with women. I'm sorry. I just

Terry Steen: 23:29

oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Dan Wheeler: 23:33

Well, you know, on the other divine appointment that happened was after my wife died, Brian and Terry decided to stay with me after her celebration of life service, and because of that, we had a divine appointment at an Outback Steakhouse over a bloomin onion. And fearless faith was formed. Here we are five plus years later, going strong. And now doing this podcast called finishing strong with fearless faith. So we're so honored to be able to do this podcast, but we want you to remember the divine appointments happen. So look for them every day. God bless.

John Matarazzo: 24:12

Thank you for listening to finish strong. For more information about finished strong and fearless faith. Check out their website f faith.org. Make sure that you rate and review this podcast to help more people accomplish their God given purpose so that together we can finish strong