“But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being. Does not the ear test words as the palate tastes food? Is wisdom with the aged, and understanding in length of days? “With God are wisdom and strength;” Job 12:7-13

“God’s coming is always unforeseen, I think, and the reason, if I had to guess, is that if he gave us anything much in the way of advance warning, more often than not we would have made ourselves scarce long before he got there.” (Buechner, Frederick. Listening to Your Life. HarperOne. Kindle Edition.)

There are places in our lives where we expect to encounter the presence of G-d, and there are places we never expect G-d to make an appearance. And yet, as Buechner says, “God’s coming is always unforeseen”. Now you might say, well if G-d’s presence is always unforeseen, then how can we expect to experience G-d in church, or anywhere? Simple, one Sunday you might experience G-d in the Word, while G-d may be speaking to me in the hymnody, or the meal. And the next Sunday you may experience G-d in the presence of your brothers and sisters in Christ and the gathering of the assembly.

You see, G-d’s coming is unforeseen, for we just never know where the Holy Spirit will enter our lives, our very hearts, to comfort us, confront us, or even convict us.

When we repent of our sins, and when we come to our senses to realize how “wise” are the words of G-d, and how mysterious our G-d really is, we are always grateful for the forgiveness that amazes us and surprises us.

Understanding how we fit into this world can be very hard. The same is true with understanding the many ways G-d works in our lives. But when we repent of our sins before G-d and realize how wise G-d’s wisdom truly is, we increase in knowledge, and see better the ways of Kingdom living. 

Pastor Dave