Disguised to Surprise

Having just completed his first day of school, five-year-old Jackson pushed open the door to McDonald's, ready to celebrate the event with a milkshake with his parents.

“Find us a table over there,” his mother said, steering him towards a line of seating along the windows while she supposedly got ready to order the shakes. Obediently, Jack trudged in that direction, looking for an empty spot. He noticed an older couple already seated at a table, smiling hugely at him. Suddenly he recognized them as his beloved grandma and grandpa who had driven the thirteen hours from their home to celebrate with him! He stared at them for a minute, trying to process, and when he realized they had come to share in his special day he jumped up and down for joy and then leapt into their arms where he was enveloped in their hugs, kisses and love. It is hard to watch the video of the event on social media without laughing and crying along with them, it is such a picture of love.

Maybe the moment moved me so because it is such a perfect picture of how God wants to share in all our special moments, whether they be happy or sad. He sits in the corners of our lives, smiling in anticipation, waiting for us to notice Him so that He can rejoice with us or comfort us. And he traveled so much farther than a mere thirteen hours to do so!

I live for such “unexpected encounters” that occur when I'm going along on an ordinary day until something causes me to suddenly see God in the moment! It could be a sentence spoken out loud that triggers a forgotten idea, a picture, a memory...the words of a song. Whatever the source, it causes me to pause and process the thought for a minute...and then rejoice as waves of recognition and revelation wash over me and I feel His love and presence once more. Nothing compares!

Not realizing his grandparents' object was to surprise him, Jackson thought he had simply forgotten they were coming. Don't we tend to do the same? God told us that He would send the Comforter to us...and He didn't mean it to be just a one-time event on the Day of Pentecost! No, the Holy Spirit is here to stay, to fill our days with His Presence and our hearts with joy. Perhaps the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is in the Bible just for the purpose of reminding us that God still walks beside us on a daily basis, listening to our list of woes, comforting our hearts and explaining what's going on in our lives...perhaps disguised just for the surprise that awaits when we recognize Him in the end!

Those disciples remembered how their hearts were burning within them while they were walking with Jesus (Luke 24:32). Couldn't you stand to have your heart warmed today? Look around; He's there.

“Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord.”

(Psalm 27:14 AMP)

Surprise in the Skies

Photo courtesy of Kevin Bridge

“I told you I'd be back,” the customer said to me, now ready to come through my line at the grocery store.

With business a little slow at that hour on a Sunday morning I'd been standing at the end of my lane, looking for people who might be ready to check out. I had spotted the man earlier, and had tried to wave him in as he passed by, but apparently he wasn't finished shopping yet. With one more item yet to pick up in the far end of the store, he pointed in that direction as he pushed on, saying, “I'll be back!”

True to his word, there he was. His order was quickly processed and he went on his way, but the words he said echoed loudly in my mind, to the point that I grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote them down.

“I told you I'd be back.”

Maybe because it was a Sunday morning and I was sensitive to missing church, his words to me were more than just a casual comment after crossing the last item off his shopping list. They were a reminder of a spiritual scenario in which we are all participants, whether we're aware of it or not.

When Jesus was gathered with His disciples the last time before His crucifixion, He tried to explain to them that He was leaving for a time, but would return. They didn't understand. He said that He was going away to prepare a place for them, and that He would come back for them, so that they would be together once more.

Since that day, Christians everywhere have been awaiting the fulfillment of that promise. I've noticed, however, that we wait in different ways. Truly, some of us have quit looking for His return altogether, much as I did the customer who walked away from me to get the last item on his list. Out of sight, out of mind, and I quickly forgot about him, until there he stood some time later at the end of my lane once more. And so do we simply carry on with the duties of our days, loving God and living out our days to the best of our abilities, but no longer really expecting Him to return to our world before we leave it and join Him in His.

Others of us, however, are in a hurry to get out of here, to leave the trials and troubles of our earthly existence behind, to check out of this life and get on with the better life promised in the next one – no sorrow, no pain...just joy unspeakable and full of glory. We look for God to come back as impatiently as do the customers in line behind someone who forgot that one item he absolutely has to have! Off he dashes to get it while everybody behind him groans in unison at the delay. They busy themselves for a minute or two looking about them and checking their phones, but after a while every head is turned in the direction the errant customer went, muttering, “Where is he?”, their eyes searching the aisle for the first sight of his bobbing head, hurrying in return.

The truth is that God is busy crossing items off a list, as well...not food items, but the names of our friends and neighbors. He is busy looking for the last of the lost souls that were invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb but have yet to make their commitment to attend. If your loved one's name is on that list, then you are grateful for the patience of the Father Who longs with all His heart for every one of His children to make it Home for the feast.

That doesn't mean we just stand idly by in the meantime. Unlike the other customers in my line, we, too, have work to do to hasten the process along. We should be about the Father's business, but with an open eye and an ear cocked to hear the trumpet's call when the guest list is complete and the Hall is filled. He expects us to be watchfully waiting, as He told His disciples when they pressed Him for details about the timing of His return. He told them to look for the signs of His coming in the world around them.

There are a multitude of strange and unusual phenomena happening around us these days. Arctic snowy owls are spotted in Florida, of all places, while bears not yet in hibernation because of the warm weather wander on ski slopes empty of people because there has been no snow. Devastating extremes in weather conditions bake our hometowns in heat and drought, wash them away in record-breaking floods or bury them in overwhelming snow. Are these simply the result of cyclic changes in weather and animal population patterns, or are they something more? At the very least they should remind us to be looking for the signs of the end of the age that Jesus said would signal His soon return, that we might not be caught unawares.

My Sunday morning customer's sudden reappearance startled me, I admit. He looked at me with a question in his eyes, a tilt to his head and a slight smile on his lips, as if perplexed at my reaction.

“I told you I'd be back.”

Jesus said “...raise your eyes and observe the fields and see how they are already white for harvesting” (John 4:35, emphasis mine)...words to live by, that His return doesn't likewise take me by surprise.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come...So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

(Matthew 24:42,44 NIV)