May 14

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.” As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”   —ISAIAH 55:8-9

In Jesus’ interactions with people, He never developed a predictable pattern. In His healing miracles, sometimes He would touch a person, sometimes not. He might speak to one, but to another say very little. On one occasion, recorded in John 9, He spat on the ground, made mud from His spittle and rubbed it into a blind man’s eyes.

After an exhausting night of fishing and catching nothing, Jesus told His disciples to go into the deep again and they reluctantly did so. They caught so many fish their nets began to break and their boats began to sink. When Jesus walked on water in the midst of a storm, His disciples, thinking He was ghost, were terrified. He climbed into the boat, calmed the storm, and they were astonished at how even the wind and the waves obeyed Him. When Jesus was summoned to His close friend, Lazarus, who was deathly ill, the disciples were dismayed that He showed no urgency at all in coming. Jesus kept them on their toes with His unpredictability. They never knew what He would do next.

The disciples had yet to learn to put their faith and confidence, not in what Jesus did, but exclusively in Jesus Himself. The Christian life is lived in relationship with Jesus, and we can never put Him inside a box of our own expectations. There are no methodologies, techniques or text book formulas to the way Christ operates. God tells us His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. They are much higher, and we need to trust Him for that.

We are not encouraged to have faith for some desired end of our own choosing, but faith in Christ alone for whatever He wants to do. Jesus said, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you” (John 15:7). We don’t know how Christ will answer our prayers, but as we grow in our Christian lives, remaining on His agenda, we come to learn that we can expect the unexpected. This is part of the thrill and adventure of the Christian life, because Jesus again and again will take us by surprise and leave us in awe of Him.

PRAYER: Dear Lord, The Christian life is a tremendous adventure. Thank You for all the times You have left me in awe, and I ask that You use me more and more. That is what fills me, Lord. Thank You.

TO REFLECT UPON: What experiences have I had in serving Christ that has left me in awe of Him?