Nearly all of us have had one of those events or encounters in our lives that we usually explain as just a coincidence. Many people believe that certain things happened just simply because we were lucky, or, it just worked out that way. But, as Christians, if we believe that our lives and the things we do are ordered of the LORD, then isn't it possible that some things work out because that's the way GOD orchestrated it?

One of my favourite hymns, which I always sing with passion, is the common hymn entitled “My Faith Looks Up to Thee”. It was a hymn borne out of an event that happened to the composer, Ray Palmer in 1830. Ray had just recently graduated from Yale University. It had been a very difficult year for him, as he had battled illness for most of the year and was especially discouraged because of loneliness. One evening, before retiring for the night, he sat down and wrote some words he said were, "Out of my soul, and with much tender emotion. So that, when I had finished the final lines, I had tears streaming down my face." He put the notes away in his wallet and carried them all around with him. Whenever he would get disconsolate, he would take them out and read them, just to console his soul.

Two years later, while in Boston, he was chanced to meet Dr. Lowell Mason, the famed hymn writer and publisher. At this coincidental meeting, Dr. Mason asked the young minister if he had anything that could be used in a new book of hymns. "Nothing but this," and he handed Mason his notes. Several days later, they met again, and Dr. Mason said, "Mr. Palmer, You may live many years and do many good things, but I think you will be best known to posterity as the writer of these words..."

What were those words Mr. Ray Palmer had written and carried in his pocket for the past two years? It was a six stanzas’ poem that begin with: 

"My Faith Looks Up To Thee, Thou Lamb Of Calvary, Saviour Divine

Now Hear Me When I Pray, Take All My Sins Away,

O Let Me From This Day Be Wholly Thine."

 We should have good reason to believe Mr. Ray Palmer was where He was supposed to be. In The Right Place, At The Right Time: Do you think it was just a coincidence? Then let’s call it Providence or Divine Arrangement.

Alas, besides numerous works, pamphlets, and special contributions to religious periodicals, he was also the author of many Christian Literatures and a great achiever of many other things, but today, Ray Palmer is best remembered as the author of “My Faith Looks Up to Thee”. The divinely inspired statement of Dr. Mason had come to pass concerning him. Sorrow looks back, worry looks around, faith looks up.

Now I’ll tell you one of the reasons why I sing this common song with great passion : Some of my very close colleagues has often wondered why I was resolute in picking up only Preston International School admission forms for my children and bluntly refusing to pick alternative admission forms from other schools, since I was known as a very good “researcher” of known and unknown schools, just in a quest to make an unrivalled selection for my children. I sincerely appreciate their concern.

Just as any other parent, I have always wanted the best for my children. Long before it was time for them to enter Secondary school, I had physically visited some known schools, exchanged mails with principals of some schools, checked some websites of schools that has embraced the 21^st century internet technology and every school that I stumbled unto, while reading newspaper, has received a little of my attention. Nevertheless, while searching the net for a Nigeria’s cost-effective school with a well-rounded education for raising well-educated and God-fearing children, I stumbled into http://www.preston-international.com. Initially, I had referred to that encounter as “Providence”, but that Providence is the Lord God Almighty Himself, making me to stumble on that right website at the right time.

As a believer in God Almighty for some years now, He has always ordered my step and my intimacy with Him has also made me to recognize and distinguish His voice whenever He speaks to me. By the time I finished perusing that website that first day, I heard the familiar “still small voice” which had guided me over the years both in mundane and critical issues of life, and I made up my mind that I have found what I’ve been looking for. That was why I was not bothered by the concerns of my close colleagues who had suggested that I should seek alternative schools’ admission for my children, as a back-up, in case Preston failed.

I later on exchanged mails with the Proprietor and paid a visit to the project site of Preston International School, which was, then at the initial construction stage. At that stage, I remembered the famous story of creation. It is written in Genesis 1:31, that at the end of creation, “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was VERY GOOD,” yet “In the beginning” when He started that creation project, “the earth was WITHOUT FORM, and VOID, and DARKNESS was upon the face of the deep” (v.1). The Living Bible speaks of “a shapeless, chaotic mass, with… dark vapors.” The Good News Bible reports a “formless and desolate …everything… engulfed in total darkness.” In that beginning, The Amplified Bible saw “an empty waste.” That was the passage to that end where “everything” was “very good”; an end with which God Himself was satisfied. Thus the chapter that started with shapeless and chaotic beginning ended with God confessing that He was truly SATISFIED.

God declares that He will give “a future and a hope” (Living Bible), “an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11); but He does not always declare the road to that “expected end.”

Had Joseph known the long and rough road to that “expected end” of greatness whose dreams he proudly announced to all, he may have shut his mouth, and in the process, shut the passage to that end (Genesis 37-43).

I want to encourage every parent and staff of this new school that the Preston’s project is of the Lord. I had carefully followed the progress thus far and had seen the great hands of the Lord at work. Lets be guided by the Lord’s Calendar and not our Calendar because at His appointed time, the Lord makes all things absolutely beautiful. Trust the past to God's mercy, the present to God's love and the future to God's providence.  I will also want to appreciate the Proprietors for their vision and sacrifice. "Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others."

God will surely do it right, but He may never use your methods (John 11:21,32). He will surely take you there, but He may never pass your ‘usual routes.’ He will drive you safely home, but relax, shut your restless eyes, and leave the steering wheels in His almighty hands. Amen.  

Aaron Olaoluwa Fapohunda (EPF-G-JVSBA)
SAP Plant Maintenance (PM) Consultant
The Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited