“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25, NIV).

One of my favorite patients is a part-time pastor. At the beginning of his visit this week, he shared a frustrating story from the day before. “I was standing in the line at Subway, telling the woman how to fix my sandwich. I like to have my bread sliced a bit different from standard, and I like four slices of cheese. In spite of my instructions, she was slicing the bread the way she was trained and placing the wrong amount of cheese on my sandwich. I started fussing at her a bit. She just spit out, ‘I was trained to do it like this. Let me do my job my way.’ To which I responded, ‘Your job is to make my sandwich my way.’”

Has God ever asked you to make Him a sandwich?

Or invite a beggar to church, and offer him a ride, or forgive a friend who put you down, or give to a mission more than you could afford, or spend your Saturday feeding inner city hungry, or speak the message of a crucified Christ to your Hindu neighbor, or cancel your golf day to buy groceries for a decadent friend, or sit at the bar to meet folks who need Jesus, or anything else that colors outside the lines of reasonable Christian behavior?

God is standing there as we live out our usual Christian responsibilities, letting us know, “Your job is to build my kingdom my way.”

God doesn’t always do things the way I think He should.

I believe strongly that the historical church and most of its tradition has been directed by God with God’s plan. I believe the ways our local churches worship and serve our Lord are mostly God led with God’s plan.

However, we should always be alert and listen closely, for God sometimes whispers radical ways for us as churches or individuals to serve Him.

None of us by doing it our way would have done it like Jesus. None of us would have begun with a cross; none of us would have sought to raise a mighty church with post-crucifixion fishermen; none of us would have martyred our most faithful in the Roman coliseums. In God’s plan, our weakness means His strength, our brokenness means His victory, our servanthood leads to His reign.

We need to listen hard and obey. Our job is to build God’s kingdom God’s way.

Dear Father,

Let me listen hard and do it your way.

Amen