Divine appointments - yarn

I'm attracted by the concept of divine appointments. Encountering someone whose heart is primed to hear what you want to say. Being in the right place and time to partner with the Kingdom of God.

I have to admit that I have mixed emotions about the feel-good suggestion to practice random acts of kindness. As a believer, I want to tune my heart to the Holy Spirit, and follow his leading. In theory, I'll end up by doing uniquely targeted acts, rather than just random ones. If I'm to be perfectly honest, however, it often seems like too much trouble to be kind, in any flavor.

I try to be kind, of course, but I'm aware of missed opportunities. I go through different phases about what to do with panhandlers, for example -- whether to resort to the tried and true NYC approach of totally ignoring them, or feeling vaguely guilty, and escalating to giving them a dollar, or an impersonal smile, or a referral to an organization that can help, or bringing them a cup of soup. No solution seems to be right for long, because people are individuals rather than stereotypes or projects. This is when I really want divine leading -- what is the right thing to do right now, with this individual?

And once in a while I realize that God has set up a divine appointment. Unfortunately, I often realize this only after the fact, which can lead to kind of funny results. More on that later.

Actually, it reminds me of a study I read about the brain. They did an experiment with people who could not communicate between the different sides of their brain. They gave simple instructions (such as 'walk across the room' or 'drink a glass of water') to one side of the brain, then observed the people following the instructions, and then asked them why they had performed these actions. Because of the brain damage, they didn't know why they had done so. Here comes the fascinating part -- they made up answers. They weren't trying to lie, they were simply trying to come up with an answer that made sense.
'Why did you walk across the room?'
'I wanted to stretch my legs.'
'Why did you drink the water?'
'I was thirsty'.

A few weeks ago, on the way home from church, I suddenly went into the Yarn store. I ended up in a conversation with one of the ladies there. To make a long story short (if it's not already too late) she asked what church I go to, and then asked lots of follow-up questions about the style and beliefs of the church. She even wanted to know what the sermon was about that morning. When I told her the topic, she then wanted to know what he actually said about it. During the conversation, I was shopping for yarn. By the end, I had invited her to church, and had completed my purchase.

It was only afterwards, when wondering why in the world I had bought all that yarn, that I realized that I acted exactly like the brain damaged people in the experiment. I assumed that if I walked into the yarn store I must have done so because I wanted to buy yarn. I didn't realize that the Spirit was simply speaking to me and telling me to go into the store.

P.S. Does anyone need $42 worth of blue alpaca yarn?