Surprised

June 6, 2008

The last day of our 30-Day Prayer Experiment has now arrived. It seems like we just started.

The purpose of this 30-Day Experiment was to begin each day with a simple prayer, “Surprise Me, God.” The Experiment was based on Terry Esau’s book of the same name. Each day we invited God to barge into our lives anytime, anywhere, anyhow God pleases, and in the process, for us to become better aware of God’s presence in our lives. If you’ve been following along you may be wondering …well, did God? And—were we?

So I went back over the last 29 days to see what happened:

First, this little 30-Day Experiment Group is a God-story in itself. We formed it with one other couple from our neighborhood. None of the other dozen-or-so neighbors that I invited were interested. Mostly I invited neighbors who didn’t appear to be engaged in a church. So, initially it felt like a bust.

But then, it turns out that the one neighborhood couple who did join us was just learning about an impending family crisis. They had no other group to be there for them. No one else to talk to. But Shazzam! Now they did. You have to admit that the timing was… well, “providential.” We had our “group,” and Jesus was keeping His promise to this couple (“behold, I am with you always until the end of time”) through this little group.

…oh yeah, and then there was the “coincidental” sale of our home. Our next-door neighbor came over one day and asked if we would consider selling to his mother so that they could live next door to each other. With my job ending we had planned to move back into the city, but were intimidated by the drop in the housing market. Even though we had not yet started the process to sell, it seemed like a gift that dropped out of the sky.

…and then there was the mysterious “healing” of our dog’s front leg. (Her limp disappeared a few days after our small group prayed over her.)

…and the beginning of a new partnership between some colleagues and myself in the downtown area of the city.

…and as I continued to meet with and counsel several individual guys, I was privileged to witness how God was transforming their lives, their relationships and their hearts into new men.

During the last 30 days I have witnessed a new strength and confidence in my own faith: the ability to stay focused in the middle of chaos.

So…did God surprise us? Did we see the hand of God working these last 30 days? Yeah. It’s a no-brainer. God did indeed. And—we were… we absolutely were.