I used to think I was the only one who did this until I read
in John 5 about the invalid who had laid by the pool of “healing water” which
was believed (in their culture) to heal the first diseased person who got into
the water after the angel stirred up the pool. This particular man had been in
this terrible state for 38 years and every time he tried to get into the water
first, someone else always beat him to it. When Jesus came up to this man having
learned that he had been in this sad state for so long, he asked this man if he
wanted to get well. The man then proceeded to tell Jesus that he had nobody to
help him get into the pool so he could get in first and be healed. Logically,
one would expect Jesus to give him a hand and help him into the pool at the
appropriate time so he could be healed. Instead, however, Jesus did something
far better and told him to get up, pick up his mat and walk! I can imagine this
guy must have initially been shocked at the instruction, staring at him with
his mouth gaping open.
Why would Jesus have gone about things in a totally
unexpected way like this? For one, maybe the “power of the healing waters” was
just a myth and Jesus did not want this man to believe that the power was in
the water itself. Or maybe he was revealing himself as Jehovah Rapha, the one
TRUE miraculous healer, to build this man’s faith in him alone to meet all of
his needs. The reason Jesus went about the healing this way is not as important
as the fact that Jesus met the need in a miraculous way, because he could and
it grew this man’s faith in him.
Could it be that this is why God chooses to answer our
prayers in a totally different way than we expect so that our faith in him
grows as we see God do the impossible in unimaginable ways? The Bible says that
his ways are far higher than our ways and his thoughts higher than our thoughts
(Isaiah 55:9). His power knows no bounds and he is not limited in resources or
by time and space. We are so very limited in what we can do or think and for
this reason, we tend to think of all the possibilities “inside the box.”
Every time, the Lord makes me smile when he answers these
prayers by supplying my needs in a way that blows my socks off! The latest
example is with my son’s college textbooks, which were going to be quite
expensive. As I began to pray about it and even picked up some extra hours at
work, I thought that God was going to answer my prayer through the extra work
hours to pay for his books (pay back the debt owed on the book purchase). When
the hours still came up too short to be able to pay for them, I remembered that
my dad had told me at my son’s graduation to let him know how much my son’s
college books were going to be and he would like to do something to help. Thinking
that this was how God was going to provide, I called and let my dad know how
much they were but he did not even respond or say anything more about it. This
was very unlike my dad because whenever he says he will help with something, he
always comes through.
It seemed I was running out of options at this point, but I continued
praying for this need to be met. About three weeks after talking to my dad (and
two months into the school year), an unexpected check came from the school
financial office reimbursing me for about 90% of the cost of the books! I had
no idea that his scholarship funds had enough to pay for the books and I was
never informed it would cover the books at all. As a matter of fact, we were
told to apply for a book scholarship (as his ACT score was quite high so he was
eligible for free books) but we missed the deadline to due to a series of
unavoidable circumstances.
There are several other examples I could share, but this one
confirmed to me again to expect the unexpected from God and don’t try to figure
out how it is going to work out in the end. Just pray and trust that he will
meet the needs as they come up and leave the rest to him.
After all, he specializes in doing the unexpected.
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