The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’” (Luke 7:18-20)
I am old enough to have had many of my church scenarios unfold quite differently than I had imagined. I can picture times when I was so clear that God was leading me into something I thought would be one scene of exciting ministry after another, only to find out years later that the real-life story was quite different than I expected. John being in prison at the end of his service to God has a certain ring of familiarity to it!
One of my early lessons in how the unexpected should be expected was in a journey through the book of Exodus a few decades ago. It kept standing out to me that what God called Moses and Israel to do consistently turned out differently than they had imagined would happen.
For example, after God spoke to Moses about his role in delivering Israel out of Egypt, and after God had responded to all Moses’ complaining and questions, Moses went to the people, the people worshiped God for hearing their prayers and coming to their rescue, and everyone was united in knowing and doing God’s will.
That is, until Pharaoh responded to Moses by doubling the workload of the people!!! Suddenly the people all turned on Moses as if he had lied to them!
When we follow this through the ten plagues, and on into their early adventures of trusting the Lord on the way to the Promised Land, we see the same pattern. God showed the people what he was doing, he even appeared to them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, but every time things turned out differently than the people expected, they complained that there was something wrong with GOD!!!
And what exactly was the problem?
That God kept putting them in situations they could only face by faith. That is exactly what they did not want then, and it is exactly what so many church folk don’t want now. We want to live in a constant state of sight-based living where everything turns out exactly as wonderfully as we expected. For God to keep putting us in impossible situations where only he could fulfill his word sends us into a tailspin.
I will get to Jesus’ reply to John tomorrow. But today some of us need to stop here long enough to attach to the God who is with us in prison. He is with us in scenarios that are painfully different than we thought they would be. He listens to our questions asking whether we got it right in the core issues surrounding our understanding of his will.
God’s encouragement to us is that when we are in scenarios like what John the Baptist was experiencing, we should send word to Jesus about it just like John did. Except for us, that would mean pouring out our hearts to our God in prayer and then meditating on whatever he shows us next in his word to see how he is answering the cry of the distressed.
Psalm 102 begins with this heading, “A Prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the LORD”. God puts these things in his word so we can come to him with words he himself has given us for the occasion. And when our occasion is feeling weary with how differently things have turned out from what we had once thought God was doing, John the Baptist in Luke 7, and the psalm writer in Psalm 102, may help us bring our own perplexing questions to God.
However, no matter what questions fill our hearts, and no matter which Scriptures we read next, God will hear and answer our prayers. Just expect that his replies might be of the unexpected variety.
© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)
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