Dealing With The Unexpected

My favourite story in yesterday’s Lowestoft Journal involved a strange bet…

John Duffield was dining in a local restaurant when he made an unexpected claim – that  no woman could explain football’s offside rule – an unexpected gender stereotype…

Unexpectedly, Elaine Charlton gave a perfect answer. Unexpectedly John kept his word and paid Elaine £1,000. Unexpectedly Elaine chose to donate her winnings to Ataxia UK, a charity that funds research into the rare neurological condition that affect co-ordination, balance and speech.

Yesterday afternoon daughter-Jo told us about her recent trip to Uganda with the ‘Romans One Eleven Trust’, a small charity that supports African pastors and their churches. She’d been with four other local folk travelling around Uganda visiting schools and churches linked to the charity. She was often required to deal with the unexpected…

The state of the roads and the transport that travelled on them… The food that their hosts generously provided for them… The wildlife that they encountered… The church buildings, and the style of worship… The water provision… The toilets…

Perhaps the biggest ‘unexpected’ was the almost daily requirement to speak to different adults and children in schools and churches, about life and faith to different, unknown people, speaking a different language, from a different culture.

This morning I was reading Mark’s gospel. Jesus has called his disciples to follow him. They’ve gone with him from village to village enjoying his stories, listening to his teaching, wondering at his miracles. They’ve been an attentive audience.

But then – unexpectedly – Jesus tells them to do what He’s been doing. That wasn’t part of the original deal! I read: ‘They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.’

So today I’m musing on facing the unexpected… Keeping unexpected promises like John… Being unexpectedly generous like Elaine… Going to unexpected places doing unexpected things like Jo… Moving unexpectedly from passive audience to active performer like Jesus’ disciples.