Growing to Expect the Unexpected

Reflections for this date are based on the following scripture passages:
Acts 7	Acts 8	Acts 9	Genesis 25	Genesis 26	Psalms 11

The Lord spoke through a vision to a disciple named Ananias who lived in Damascus telling him to go to a certain house in Damascus where he would find "a man from Tarsus named Saul." This man Saul had also seen a vision in which Ananias came to him and restored his sight. (Acts 9:10-12) Because of Saul's reputation for persecuting Christians, Ananais was reluctant to go to him. But the Lord told him, "This man is My chosen instrument to carry My name before Gentiles, kings, and the sons of Israel." (Acts 9:15)

We are prone to reject anything that does not make sense to us. How often throughout history have people rejected God or His plans for them because they didn't make sense to them? We don't have to read too far into scripture, however, to discover that expecting God's ways to be as our ways is what doesn't make sense. Throughout the history of mankind, God has always done the unexpected. Unexpected, that is, based on man's reasoning. But God is God and His ways are different from ours and we are wise to embrace this and become willing to respond to God's unexpected activity in our lives. However discomforting this may be to us, though, this is often where the greatest blessings lie.

Saul of Tarsus was one of God's unexpected choices. Why would God use this man who was working against Him? After all, wasn't God already using men like Peter and Philip in powerful ways? Wouldn't Saul just be a distraction not to mention the risk he might be? But God had big plans for Saul, who we now know as Paul, from which we still benefit. Why would God use people like Paul who did such atrocious things to the followers of Christ? But we cannot answer this question without touching on the reasons we find God's ways so foreign to us. God is forgiving when we are reluctant to forgive. God restores lives we might think undeserving of being restored. God uses weak and sinful people whom we look down on because He is glorified even more through their weakness than He is through our supposed strength.