January 16
2019
Unfamiliarity and Inflexibility
Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them. Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. Luke 24:18-31
After the crucifixion of Jesus, two of his followers walked on the road to Emmaus with a Man.
They told Him the story of Jesus, His arrest and crucifixion.
And the Man unfolded the Scriptures for them.
What they didn’t realize was that the Man was the resurrected Christ.
They did not recognize Him.
However, when they stopped for a meal and He blessed the bread and broke it, immediately their eyes were open and they recognized Him before He vanished.
They didn’t recognize Jesus in His resurrected body until He did something familiar
– the breaking of bread.
Sometime we don’t recognize the working of Jesus in our lives unless He is doing something familiar.
The moment He moves in a new or different way we begin to doubt that it is He at work.
The unfamiliarity of the move leaves us inflexible.
But the moment He moves in a familiar way we recognize His Hand at work.
We need to get to know our Jesus more intimately.
We need to understand that He moves in various and sometimes mysterious ways.
We must not depend on the fact that He will always move in a familiar way in our lives. Unfamiliarity doesn’t need to lead to inflexibility.
Oh that our faith would rise above the expectation of the familiar into the realm of the unknown!