God reveals his plans in ways unknown to us. As life has its own newness and freshness all the time, God the giver of life too has freshness of love and action. Pharisees and Scribes in the New Testament of the Bible were so sure of how God was to work, that they even could control what God would say and do. Too well they knew God that they would not allow even God to take another way than what they thought.
Others simply realised their need for God in their life. They acknowledged that they were weak, and when they received life, there was always freshness in them. There is also a responsible belonging; an experience of 'being received'.
They have no sure claim; fasting, vigils, and a manifested holy life. Their hope is only in God. God could do great things in their life, nothing so special but live the ordinariness of life with God cheerfully. We wait for God in unusual miracles. Why can we not see that God who is always with us in our everyday lives?
Those claimed to be righteous could not do this because they could never see God. True, they never searched for God. They wanted what they thought of God to be real for ever. Unknowingly they made their idols. Idols are not made by wood and metals but by our narrow definitions of God.
We often want to define God as we want, we frame it, chain it and cage it may be to guard our religions. We want our words to be parroted by 'our gods' and 'I' become the faithful messenger for 'my god'.
The early we can recognise our closed heart to God, the deeper we can come to know the real heart of God; and then our our own heart where we can welcome God in God's own ways.
Surprise!
