I don't know about you, but until I get to know people well I only recognise them in places where I am used to seeing them. Sometimes a person appears in an unfamiliar context and is surprised when I don't greet him or her. "I'm really sorry," I explain with embarrassment, "but, seeing you out of context, I just didn't make the connection."
Today's entry in my favourite Our Daily Bread notes struck a chord. It is entitled "Surprise" and reminds us to be on the lookout for God at work when we least expect!
"A writer for The Washington Post conducted an experiment to test people’s perception. He asked a famous violinist to perform incognito at a train station in the nation’s capital one January morning. Thousands of people walked by as he played, but only a few stopped to listen. After 45 minutes, just $32 had been dropped into the virtuoso’s open violin case. Two days earlier, this man—Joshua Bell—had used the same $3.5 million Stradivarius for a sold-out concert where people paid $100 a seat to hear him perform.
"The idea of a person not being recognized for his greatness isn’t new. It happened to Jesus. “He was in the world,” John said, “. . . and the world did not know Him” (John 1:10). Why did people who had been expecting the Messiah give Jesus such a cold reception? One reason is that they were surprised. Just as people today don’t expect famous musicians to play in railway stations, the people in Jesus’ day didn’t expect Messiah to be born in a stable. They also expected Him to be a political king—not the head of a spiritual kingdom.
"The people in the first century were blinded to God’s purpose in sending Jesus to this world. He came to save people from their sins (John 1:29). Receive God’s surprising gift of salvation that He offers freely to you today.
"Amazing thought! that God in flesh
Would take my place and bear my sin;
That I, a guilty, death-doomed soul,
Eternal life might win! —Anon.
"God broke into human history to offer us the gift of eternal life."
Monday 31 October 2011
Saturday 15 October 2011
Coincidences
Someone once said that there are no coincidences, only God-incidences. On one level, nothing indeed happens without God overseeing it. As an old children's hymn once put it,
He sees the meanest sparrow fall
unnoticed in the street.
Since He is God, He can also bring together two separate events to make a point. Sometimes the connection is totally obscure unless revealed by the Holy Spirit. I think of the strange linkage of Bible verses which pointed towards Judas returning the money the chief priests gave him for betraying Jesus:
"Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: 'They took the thirty silver coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me'" (Matthew 27:9-10, NIV).
This is an amazing mix of two apparently tiny events that happened in Jeremiah 19 and Zechariah 11. Yet together they shone a spotlight on what Judas did hundreds of years later.
I have known people to look for divinely-ordered comings together of events at every turn of the road. It seems a very touching use of the eye of faith, but after a while it becomes tedious. You feel that God has better things to do than make us work out an inner meaning for everything that happens. But clearly He does at times bring events together to produce a strong and compelling message.
In Acts 10 a Roman centurion called Cornelius had a vision of an angel telling him to ask for a man called Peter to come to his house. The very next day Peter, too, saw a vision. In it he learned that, despite the religious taboos he had been brought up with, he must not call anything "unclean" once God had declared it clean. Non-Jews were thought to be unclean! So God paved the way for Peter to receive Cornelius' invitation and preach the gospel to him. This God-incidence was the start of the spread of Christianity throughout the world.
Just before Harvest Festival I had prepared a short talk on how unexpected things can be used as foods - including heather! How surprised I was to see heather in abundance in the church along with the harvest produce that morning. That coincidence was, I guess, the smile of God, and a great blessing at the time. Other coincidences may carry much more urgent and weighty messages from God to you and me.
He sees the meanest sparrow fall
unnoticed in the street.
Since He is God, He can also bring together two separate events to make a point. Sometimes the connection is totally obscure unless revealed by the Holy Spirit. I think of the strange linkage of Bible verses which pointed towards Judas returning the money the chief priests gave him for betraying Jesus:
"Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: 'They took the thirty silver coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me'" (Matthew 27:9-10, NIV).
This is an amazing mix of two apparently tiny events that happened in Jeremiah 19 and Zechariah 11. Yet together they shone a spotlight on what Judas did hundreds of years later.
I have known people to look for divinely-ordered comings together of events at every turn of the road. It seems a very touching use of the eye of faith, but after a while it becomes tedious. You feel that God has better things to do than make us work out an inner meaning for everything that happens. But clearly He does at times bring events together to produce a strong and compelling message.
In Acts 10 a Roman centurion called Cornelius had a vision of an angel telling him to ask for a man called Peter to come to his house. The very next day Peter, too, saw a vision. In it he learned that, despite the religious taboos he had been brought up with, he must not call anything "unclean" once God had declared it clean. Non-Jews were thought to be unclean! So God paved the way for Peter to receive Cornelius' invitation and preach the gospel to him. This God-incidence was the start of the spread of Christianity throughout the world.
Just before Harvest Festival I had prepared a short talk on how unexpected things can be used as foods - including heather! How surprised I was to see heather in abundance in the church along with the harvest produce that morning. That coincidence was, I guess, the smile of God, and a great blessing at the time. Other coincidences may carry much more urgent and weighty messages from God to you and me.
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