As finite human beings living in a fallen world, we experience shock or surprise multiple times a day. An unexpected phone call or knock on the door, a breaking news story, an accidental spill of coffee on your freshly ironed shirt. Emergency rooms would cease to exist if this element of surprise weren’t part of being human. If we manage to go one day without having any surprises it’s a rare thing. But what about God? Is it possible for God to be surprised, stupefied, and dumbfounded? Scripture teaches that God is not only all-knowing (Psalm 139), but that he also sovereignly orchestrates every event from the rise and fall of world empires (Daniel 4:25b) to the hairs on our heads and the flight of every bird that swoops over them (Matthew 10:29-31). He knows and guides everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. Period. So when it comes to genuinely catching God off-guard, the biblical answer reveals that to be an impossibility. Yet in Mark 6, we see Jesus choosing
The overflow of one sinner's heart transformed by the gospel of God's grace in Christ.