I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe in God-incidences.
I’ve used that phrase for many years. Today, I want to honor two friends of mine. These two
friends were from completely different circles in my life; they didn’t know each other, and had
zero interaction with each other. And through my friendship, they created a God-incident in my
life.
BTW, some people call these “God winks”. I’m good with either.
My first friend is Tom Vander Well. He has been reading a chapter in the Bible each weekday
and doing a blog/podcast on that chapter. He’s been doing this for a while, his site goes back to
March 2006, and it looks like he’s been doing it for a lot longer than that.
Back on Friday, March 28th, 2025, he published a comment on Matthew chapter 2. Tom’s
message on Friday was about all the connections that jumped out at him in this chapter. Just
to give you a sample of his message, I’m going to read one paragraph. Tom writes:
“Along my spiritual journey, I’ve come to learn that everything is connected. Christian mystics
have pushed into this concept for centuries and I have come to embrace it the more I seek the
things of God on this chapter-a-day journey and find it to be true. God wove it into the fabric of
the universe. Even science has stumbled onto it and call it Quantum Entanglement. Though I
prefer Einstein’s description. He theorized it and called it 'Spooky Action at a Distance.'“
This got my attention. You see, on the CliftonStrengths assessment, ‘Connectedness’ is my
number 3 strength. Anytime that things like this come across my mind, I get a little hit of
dopamine, the ‘feel-good’ brain chemical, and I pay attention.
Then in Tom’s next to last paragraph, he writes:
“Finally, the events today surrounding Jesus’ birth are connected to His death. These
'authorities' and 'powers of this world' (e.g. the Herods, the Temple religious establishment,
and Rome ) are one-and-the-same as the unholy trinity who will send baby Jesus to the cross in
about 33 years later on Good Friday. They are direct ancestors of the kingdoms and empires of
this world (government, commerce, and religion) that continues to hold sway today under the
dominion of the Prince of this World, even as I daily attempt to bring the Love and Light of the
Kingdom of God to earth through my words and actions in my circles of influence.”
As it turned out, I meditated on this entire message off and on all that weekend. My brain would
not let it go. Then, on Monday, I received an email that took this to the next level. This email was
from my second friend, Alton Biggs. He does a weekday “Words of Wisdom for Your Day”
email. Monday, March 31st, he wrote:
“I’ve become convinced there are no coincidences. What we look back on as coincidences are
actually little miracles from God for which we often pay too little attention and forget to offer
our thanks.”
Do you see the connection? That’s a God-incident (or God wink) if I’ve ever seen one.
Over the next week, I saw more and more connections between these two messages. Finally, I
had to send Tom’s message to Alton and Alton’s message to Tom, just to introduce them to each
other. And even then, this God-incident kept coming back to my attention.
I finally realized that the meta-connection is that Good Friday and Easter will be here soon. What
better way to help people get in the spirit than to give them a great example of a God-wink and
encourage all of you to be on the lookout for the God-incidences in your life! And if you have
any recent ones, you’re welcome to put them in the comments on this post.
I’ll link to Tom’s message on his website in the comments, as well as Alton’s email, in case you
want to connect with them.
I’m going to close today with a passage from The Living Bible:
May the Lord bless and protect you; may the Lord’s face radiate with joy because of you; may he
be gracious to you, show you his favor, and give you his peace.
Tom’s message: https://tomvanderwell.com/2025/03/28/connected-3/
Alton’s email: altonbiggs*at*gmail.com