Sweet Expectations

There once was a man who was walking in the jungle. As he got farther and farther in he became somewhat disoriented and unfortunately got lost. The man tried not to panic but the ever-present danger of wild, aggressive and hungry animals lurking in the jungle made him very nervous. As he was trying to find his way out, he began to hear the frightening roar of a tiger.

He started paying very close attention to how far or how close that roar sounded in his ear. Carefully he continued through the jungle trying to zig zag through the brush to try to cover his scent but the sound of the tiger got eerily closer and closer. Hairs stood up on the back of his neck as he felt the wild animal right on his heels. He began to frantically run and scared half-to-death ended up stumbling and falling over the edge of a cliff. As he was falling down the side of the cliff, his hands clawed along the rocks in a desperate attempt to save himself. He managed to barely catch hold of a very small, precarious bush. He grasped on to that bush with both hands and for dear life.

As he held on, he became very concerned as he noticed the fragile roots of the small bush starting to feel the strain of his weight. Above him lurked the tiger that was chasing him and it was drooling with hungry anticipation. With a slight glimmer of hope, he quickly looked below to formulate an escape plan. But just when he thought things couldn't get any worse he noticed another tiger below patiently waiting for the inevitable.

There he was, caught in the middle between the tiger above him and the tiger below him, desperately hanging on to this little shrub that was pulling out at the roots. In the middle of this very scary ordeal, right about eye level, he happened to notice a small indentation on the side of the rocky cliff. Inside that little space, he noticed – to his wide-eyed amazement – a wild strawberry was growing....it was a perfectly formed, juicy, red, and ripe. Letting go with one of his hands while barely hanging on to the bush he hungrily reached out and picked the berry and ate it.

I suspect that many of us come to church and also live our Christian lives by holding on precariously between the past and future; both of them roaring at us, demanding our attention. We can feel hopeless about moments that we experienced from long ago that we may never encounter again or fearing what the future may or may not bring us. If we give all our attention to these two tigers, we can miss the gift of the present moment, the delicious strawberry before our eyes.

Mercy Gate Church I believe is going to encounter things from Heaven that no one has ever seen, done or imagined before. God himself is going to be doing a NEW thing in and through His people. As we go about our busy lives I pray that we watch with anticipation the supernatural provision and opportunities that is being laid before us. In the moments and places that we least expect is when God will lavish us with something so wonderful and extraordinary that it will cause us to laugh in the face of our enemies and believe in the impossible....living life in sweet victory and taking as many people along with us.

'Be alert, be present. I'm about to do something brand-new. It's bursting out! Don't you see it? There it is! I'm making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.'

Isaiah 43:19 MSG

--Jonna