What a welcome surprise! By Neville Callam
Is anything more wonderful than a pleasant surprise? An unexpected visitor whom you longed to see. A lovely email from a special friend from whom you haven't heard for a very long time. An act of kindness you never anticipated. It fills you with joy. It brings a smile to your face. It warms your heart.
But there are some surprises that do not produce a positive effect. These are surprises that one would rather not have. They leave you disappointed and, if you do not make the appropriate response to them, your confidence in humanity could be severely impaired.
Because life is a marvelous adventure, a journey marked by steep mountains and deep valleys, one should expect all sorts of surprises. Hardly, however, can anything prepare a person for the trauma often associated with feeling let down, felling brutally betrayed by someone you trusted. For a moment, you feel you can never trust again. You wonder whether anyone can be believed. You ask yourself whether you should ever again expect anyone to be honest, loyal, faithful, and true.
People do have experiences that make surprise a sometimes welcome and sometimes unwelcome guest. It is not so with people of faith who, in their dealings with God, come to know one who is altogether trustworthy. After being Christ-followers for a few years, we can joyfully sing, "Great is your faithfulness," knowing that we are not only giving voice to a verse of scripture, but also expression to a fact of life. The God we serve does not take a vacation from being utterly reliable. God never makes a promise that goes unfulfilled. God's word can always be trusted. In a sense, we may claim that, with God, there are no surprises. God always remains true!
Yet, there are times when God surprises us. We shouldn't be surprised, but we are.
Do you not recall a situation when you looked back on a passage of your life and you realized how, without your ever realizing it, God was there guiding your steps, aiding you in the quest to live with integrity, leading you to make the kind of choices fit for children on the Christian pilgrimage? After our retrospective look, we joyfully state what has come home to us with crystal clarity. We conclude, "So, that's what God was up to!" We smile; we breathe a sigh of relief, and we offer a word of thanks!
After an experience like this, we read from the book of Psalms familiar passages that take on a brand new meaning. When, for example, we read Psalm 116:1, "I love the Lord ..." our heart overflows with joy because we have come to know the wonder of the God who is ever faithful. God protects God's own! God vanquishes foes bent on your destruction. God brings to nothing the orchestrated plan of the enemy. When God surprises us, what a welcome surprise!
So, with Psalm 117:2, we can say, "Great is God's love toward us and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever."
