Red Coats and Risks

By Shirley Rogers

Recently I've had opportunities to pray for people out and about in hairdressers and hotels, in supermarkets and sowing rooms! But it's been a few months since I went out and about specifically looking for His opportunities to pray with people.

I'm leading my small group through the book 'Do What Jesus Did' by Robby Dawkins and knew I couldn't encourage them to embrace a life of adventurous risk taking if I wasn't doing the same!! As the book says, God is not looking for experts but people who are available. God’s gift to us is ability; our gift to God is availability. So I made Wednesday morning available and asked God who was on His treasure list that He wanted me to meet that day.

To be honest I headed out feeling a bit nervous and more than a bit 'rusty'. At first I wasn't seeing people who matched my treasure hunt list but one of the treasure clues was a lady in a red coat so I decided I would pray for every 'red coat' I saw!!

Brief pause for those who know me well to have a giggle!! When it comes to praying for people out and about I'm a bit like Joseph, looking for the coats of many colours my Father has for me! But over and over I've seen Him touch the lives of these people. One of the most memorable for me was a lady in a green coat. We prayed for her sister who had just been diagnosed with cancer and found out a few weeks later she had been given the all clear!!

I was excited when I saw my first 'red coat' grimace because her wrist was sore as I also had 'right wrist in pain and bandaged' on my treasure list!! I 'casually' asked if her wrist was sore but she said she was just changing her shopping basket to another hand as it was heavy. So instead I asked her if there was one thing I could pray for her what would it be but she just said 'good health' as she rushed away!!!

Normally that wouldn't have bothered me but because it was the first time I had done treasure hunting for a while, I was tempted to feel discouraged. I know that discouragement doesn't come from our Heavenly Father but from the father of lies, so the best thing to do was to find the nearest 'red coat' and pray for them!!

I headed to B and Q as it was on my list too. I met a lovely lady in a red coat. She didn't want prayer for anything specific but said she needed "all the prayers she could get!" I don't think she really expected me to actually pray for her there and then but did accept my offer to do so. I just prayed she would know how special she was to God, how much He loved her and that He would fill her with His peace, hope and joy. Her eyes filled with tears and she was very thankful.

Fast forward to Tesco on Friday morning. As I got my trolley I felt to pray that I was available for any opportunities He had for me as I did my grocery shop. Two seconds later I walked in to the store at the same time as a lady wearing a red coat!! I made a quick comment about the weather but chickened out of offering to pray right there in the doorway! I remembered I wanted to get some shampoo (on offer!) so I headed over to that aisle.

Guess who was already there? Red coat lady!! And she had a bandage on her right wrist too!! I quickly explained about my list on Wednesday morning. She showed me that she had just had an operation on her hand but wasn't sure if it was going to correct the problem. I offered to pray that the operation would be a complete success and she would have full movement in her hand again. When I asked her if she could move her fingers any more, she started to explain about the operation again but then said "my hand is tingling all over". He is so good :-)

I maybe didn't get to pray for lots of people on Wednesday morning but it did mean I got to pray for that lovely lady on Friday. It was like a rollover bonus!!

Thank you Father for your divine appointments in supermarket aisles :-)

"This is what it means to be the Church— not to be perfect, or better than our neighbours. It means that the good news of God’s love actually lives inside us and is available to build up, restore, heal and transform the world around us." (R. Dawkins)

Are you "available" this week?