I have to admit to times of thinking “I wish that would happen to/for me.”  I hear this fantastic testimony of someone-maybe a healing or a miraculous answer to prayer-and even as I write this I can still hear me saying, “What about me God?”  I do the recounting of all that I have “done for God” and therefore deserve whatever it is.  There are many fallacies to that way of thinking besides a works-oriented “I deserve this” approach to God.  One more glaring error is thinking that just because God did something one way for one person,  He has to is going to do the same for me.  I won’t lie to you and say that “pastor envy” is not a constant battle many of us face.  Please don’t get me wrong here.  I know who I am in Christ.  I am truly thankful that God has put me where He has.  I have no regrets in that at all.  But if most pastors are honest they will admit to seeing “growing green grass” on the other side of the fence.  But God is not in our box nor can He be put there.  John Eldredge wrote the following in his book Wild at Heart:

The spiritual life cannot be made suburban.  It is always frontier and we who live in it must accept and even rejoice that it remains untamed.”  Howard Macy -p.208

Let me put it into other words: God is not in a rut as to how He is going to work. What works for one may not be the way He chooses to work for another. There are no formulas with God.  If there are no formulas with God, then it only stands to reason that there are no set formulas for the way God deals with us.  For further proof of that truth, check out this Scripture: “Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!  ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be glory forever. Amen.” Rom.11:33-36 Okay, so sometimes the Bible is unclear in what it says.  But this is not one of those times! God will work but it just may not be the way I want Him to.

You know what?  I am glad.  Sameness=boring=blahness (I know that is not word but please forgive me for using it).  I know there are some people who need routine and this is not a slam against them at all.  But I, for one, am so glad that God chooses to operate differently, for different people, in different ways.  I would just hate to serve a predictable God who had no imagination.  How boring and uninspiring that would be!!

How about you?  Do you like sameness?  Has God been unpredictable to you?  How has He surprised you lately?  OR have you missed His surprises because your eyes have been closed to His unpredictable ways?  I would like to hear your thoughts.