As you age, your sleep patterns shift. When I was younger I thought nothing of sleeping until noon. A steady job cured that. I still liked to sleep in on weekends, though. Then kids came along and cured that. Once the kids were old enough to want to sleep in themselves, my back made sure I didn’t lay around long enough to ever get breakfast in bed.

These days I set my alarm for five thirty, but if I wake up earlier I get up, ‘cuz I figure if the Lord wanted to talk to me that badly, I’d best hear what He had to say. He got me up at four thirty this morning, and as I looked around, it was pretty clear what He wanted me to do. Clean up!

I am normally a pretty clean guy, but things pile up when your working steady 12 hour days, and the place did need going over. So I put in a hour or so before I got ready for work, and I must admit the place looked better for it. Round about noon the rental agent for our apartment called. Could she show the place to a prospective client? “Sure,” I said smugly. About an hour later the rental agent for the apartment we are moving to wanted to know if she could come over after work so I could sign an agreement for the place we are moving to (that has an actual kitchen, instead of a sink and a tiny counter). “Sure,” I said, even more smugly than before.

She has just left; a lovely Christian lady, who will in fact become our neighbour. She left with glowing words about how clean the place was and how we were going to make such good tenants in the new apartment and of course anything that needing fixing she would look after ’cause we obviously were going to look after it. Neat how that works, huh? It cost me one hour, it secured us a good witness for years to come. I like the deals the Lord gives me. They are always to my advantage!