The Mystery Lesson of the Barely-Caught Bus

The other day, I met a guy who barely caught the bus that I was riding. It wasn't that he was late. He was waiting for the bus as it approached, but the bus driver misread his body language and thought that he wasn't interested in catching the bus, so the bus rolled right past him. A few blocks later, the guy, riding a skateboard, caught up to the bus and was eventually allowed on. We happened to be getting off at the same stop, so after we got off the bus, I struck up a conversation with him and ultimately invited him to join me for a free breakfast at the LDS Institute. We talked about the church and General Conference. It's hard to say whether the conversation had any real impact on him. But he invited me to a play he's in and he lent me the book that the play is based on, so I'm sure I'll see him again, if only to return the book. Maybe we'll talk more then.

I've been trying to think of what sort of lesson we can learn from this. In theory, the guy should have been able to just catch the bus like normal. After all, he was waiting for it. It should have stopped for him. His ride would then have gone uneventfully, and we never would have talked. Maybe, just maybe, that conversation we had was important enough to God that He was willing to give the guy some undeserved grief, just to make sure the conversation happened. It's possible. I may never know for sure.

But what I do know for sure is that God never takes anything away from us without (eventually) offering us something better. They guy I met on that bus lost the opportunity to have a normal bus ride. That opportunity was taken away from him. In return, God gave him an opportunity to hear about the church. That may be a great blessing, if it goes anywhere. If not, maybe there's another reason for our meeting. That's another thing I know. There are reasons behind everything God does. We might not learn all those reasons until much later, and we can't necessarily attribute all events to the hand of God anyway. Maybe the guy missing the bus was just bad or good luck. I don't know for sure whether or not to call it an act of God.

Still, something happened, and I highly doubt that we have, or ever will, hear the end of it. I'm confident that someone's life was blessed by the events of the other day, but I have yet to fully learn whose or how.