Let People Surprise You

4-17-16

One day this week as I was coming in from work, I walked by my little garden spot. The oregano is growing like it has ambitions to be a man eating plant and the strawberries are blooming like they can't imagine doing anything else. But something surprised me. Flowers I planted two years ago are suddenly blooming.

It had been a stressful day, and I wasn't expecting to be greeted by those perky little purple flowers. I stopped for a minute and grinned. Then I may have skipped a little. There's a bit of Anne of Green Gables in me. I honestly hadn't even thought about those flowers, and there they were, smiling up at me.

Sometimes people do that. I don't like to give up on people, but there have been individuals I have just about written off who come around. It's shocking when it happens. I have seen people totally turn their lives around when I would have expected it from other people much sooner.

But we can't put people in boxes. Well, we can, but we shouldn't. Why? You can't box up God. Well, again, you can try, but you shouldn't. Ephesians 3:20 is one of my favorite verses: "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us." God can make things happen we can't even imagine.

The Bible also says in Ezekiel 18:23, "Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?' says the Lord God, 'and not that he should turn from his ways and live?" God wants everyone to come to Him. He stopped a persecutor of Christians on a Damascus road and turned him into an evangelist. Is there really anyone God can't use for something great?

Let's be on the lookout for surprises. Better than that, let's pray for them. Because with God in the equation, anything can happen.

May the Lord bless and keep you,

Heather