After a significant strain to her vocal cords, Lilly set-up an appointment with a throat specialist. When she arrived at the doctor’s office, she was more than a little shocked at the number of patients who were waiting to see the same specialist.

After what seemed like hours, the nurse led Lilly to a waiting room. You know the drill.

“I was about to complain about the wait when the nurse said, ‘May I ask you something personal?’”

Lilly replied, “Yes, of course.”

“I noticed your hand,” she said hesitantly.

Lilly had lost half of her left hand in a forklift accident when she was 11. That imperfection had changed her view of life.

The nurse continued, “What I need to know is how has this affected your life.”

It had been 25 years since that terrible day and no one had ever asked that question. They’d ask, “Does it bother you?” but never, “How has it affected your life?”

Before Lilly could respond the nurse said, “You see, I just had a baby, and her hand is like yours. I, well, I need to know how it has affected your life.”

After a few moments of thought Lilly answered, “It HAS affected my life, but not in a bad way. I do many things that people with two normal hands find difficult. I type about 75 words a minute, I play the guitar, I have ridden and shown horses for years. I’m involved in musical theater, and I am a professional speaker. I am constantly in front of a crowd. And, I do television shows four or five times a year.”

“It was never ‘difficult’ because of the love and encouragement of my family. They always talked about all the great notoriety I would get because I would learn how to do things with one hand that most people had trouble doing with two. We were all very excited about that. That was the main focus, not the handicap.”

“Your daughter doesn’t have a problem. She is normal. You are the one who will teach her to think of herself that way. She will come to know she is ‘different,’ but you will teach her that different is wonderful. Normal means you are average. What’s fun about that?”

She was silent for a bit and whispered, “Thank you,” and walked out.

Lilly sat thinking, “I was the right person in the right place, at the right time.”

God shapes our days so that we are always the right person in the right place at the right time. That shaping takes faith outside the walls and between the weekends. He puts us in “By faith…” moments.

Although, intimacy with God, listening to His voice, and accepting His call happen in private and in Sunday worship, faith happens outside the walls, between the weekends, in everyday life.

Faith is not validated or incited inside any room or sanctuary; it may be birthed there, but it is not lived there. God designed faith to show up in the critical moments when He puts us in the right place at the right time. In these “God things” God transforms weekdays into Sundays. They become our “By faith…” moments, as in Hebrews 11.

Bruce, my pastor friend from California, is investing his life redefining faith as lifestyle. He email me recently… “Ron, I pray this prayer for you daily, ‘Father, give Ron divine dissatisfaction with the status quo. Put him in contact with lost and searching people who won’t visit a church campus. Let him see the new things you are doing in this lost world—awakening, to see the reason for which Jesus came and died. Amen!’”

Do you see new things? I do!

Faith in action is emerging in strange places and finding a place of honor and influence in spite of what you hear. Our culture may be in trouble, but faith is not. Change is in the air. We have been too focused on ourselves, too status quo, too talk focused, for too long.

God is searching for believers who are ready to be the story of faith outside the walls, before they tell the story inside the walls.

It’s time to trust what God is already doing right in front of us. The truth is, He is placing us in the right place at the right time. And, too many of us never know it.

So are you ready to be?

Ron Rose is a lifelong storyteller, a pastor, author, convertible lover, coffee aficionado, world traveler, conversationalist, faith coach, devoted husband, proud father, inspirational eulogist, engaging speaker, on-the-fly creative, action movie junky, occasional gourmet, mountain loving heart event survivor, and a grace-loving follower of Jesus who sees Abba in every room he’s in. Oh, and he’s blessed to be a fun loving genuine baldheaded old guy.