Surprise

“What is so surprising about this?”  

This was Peter’s question to the astonished crowd who witnessed the healing of the lame beggar.  This favorite Sunday school story is found in Acts, chapter 3. Peter and John are going to the temple to pray when a lame man who begged at the temple gate everyday asked them for money. Peter and John look at him and then Peter says, we have no money, but we have Jesus and in his name you can walk.  Then, they help him to his feet and he begins walking and leaping and praising God. (I loved that line in the Sunday school song.) He then goes into the temple with them.  The congregation gathered there is “absolutely astounded” when they realize this is the beggar whom they’ve passed everyday on their way into the temple.  Seizing the opportunity, Peter says why are you so surprised and why are you staring at us as if we did this on our own?  Don’t you know, Peter wanted to say, what’s wrong with you people, didn’t you pay any attention to events of the last several months, and don’t you have a clue whose followers we are? In a way, he did. But he also told them, “Through faith in the name of Jesus, this man was healed.”  He told them this same Jesus came to be their Savior.

Peter might have been surprised himself that his sermon resulted in his arrest and that thousands of peopole became believers that day.  But then again, maybe not, Jesus had been surprising Peter from the time they met on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus had borrowed his boat, filled it with fish and them called him to follow him. (Another favorite Sunday school story found in Luke, chapter 5)

Sometimes I find myself responding like this astonished crowd, surprised by the power and goodness of God, surprised by his concern for the broken and the broke.  He answers a pray and a friend is healed, a relative is employed, a wayward child turns for home, or a difficult situation lightens up. And I asked myself, what is so surprising about this? Have you not paid attention?  I am reminded as Peter told the crowd and the Psalms so eloquently says, it is the name of the Lord that we find help, hope, direction and all that is needed for life.

Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
      but to your name goes all the glory
      for your unfailing love and faithfulness.  (Psalm 115:1)

The Lord says, “I will rescue those who love me.
      I will protect those who trust in my name.
When they call on me, I will answer;
      I will be with them in trouble.
      I will rescue and honor them. (Psalm 91:14-15)

The Lord will work out his plans for my life—
      for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. (Psalm 138:8)

Thanks be to God!

Thanks for listening

See you next Sunday,

Ronda

Twenty-four years ago this week I had the best surprise of my life; one of God’s “goodest” gifts to me. After nine months of anticipating giving birth to a baby boy, my almost 10 pound baby girl arrived. The first words her daddy said were, “a girl ?!” Less than an hour before she was born, the doctor was still saying, gotta be a boy. The “pencil test” had been saying boy consistently for months and the doctor was 95% sure I was carrying a boy.  Nevertheless, on May 21, 1987, we took our baby girl home to her blue nursery and little Dallas cowboy outfits. Luckily, my mother had a cut out a pink dress the week before “just in case” and Stephen’s grandmother finished it so Virginia Grace could come home in pretty pink, instead of Dallas Cowboy blue!  

She is evidence that God does indeed know what is best for me!

Virginia Grace,
Ready to go home in her pink dress
May 21, 1987