September 21, 2023

Mark 1: 38 Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” (NIV)

God’s call isn’t determined by human logic, nor can the effectiveness of a ministry be measured by numbers alone.*

Wherever Jesus was, there were people who needed to hear the gospel. Why was it necessary now for him to go elsewhere to preach? The short answer: because it was time.

As anyone who has answered God’s call can attest, sometimes God’s will seems a bit random. We find examples of God’s randomness in Jesus’ ministry and miracles. My favorite random event is found in the eighth chapter of Acts when Philip, who was having great success at a revival in Samaria, was sent out to a desert road between Jerusalem and Gaza to preach to one solitary person. Why did it have to be Philip and why did it have to be then? Also, read about Paul’s “Macedonian Call” in Acts chapter 16. For a more recent example: I met a family who, while living in New York, were called to a mission in Texas down by the Mexican border. Their work there resulted in the baptism of one woman before they were called elsewhere.

Random? Probably not. As I read somewhere: “Nothing’s random. Even if it looks that way, it’s just because you don’t know the causes.”* Doing the will of the Father may have the appearance of randomness but God knows the who and the why and the when. Our job is to faithfully go where he leads us. Sometimes blindly. Sometimes randomly. Jesus showed us how (and sometimes why). So did Philip. And Abraham. And many other heroes of faith.

Jesus could have stayed where he was and reached the lost people there. Philip could have carried on with his preaching in Samaria. The family that went to Texas could have felt like failures for their lack of results – but they didn’t. Jesus, Philip, my friends – they understood that God knows what he is doing. And that was all they needed to know. Random? What’s that?

It [the Bible] rarely, or ambiguously, answers the backward-looking question “Why?” Instead, it raises the very different, forward-looking question, “To what end?”*