O sing to the LORD a new song,
For He has done wonderful things,
His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him.
Psalm 98:1 NASB

During the 1990s and well into the early 2000s, a friend and I were co-worship leaders at our church. We often had long conversations about what God was doing in our lives and in the life of our church body during those days. During one of our conversations about all God is doing in us and in our church, my friend confessed that he struggled at times with “feeling needed”. I felt impressed to simply begin listing all the ways I could see of how vital his life was to the Body of Christ, and we basically began to exhort one another and build up each other.

When we walk in relationship with others, we tend to want to protect them and serve them…to encourage them. The more I thought about my friend feeling “unneeded”, the more I began to recognize the subtle lies of the enemy that we all tend to believe from time to time in our own lives. During such times, we need to recognize our stinking thinking and kick it to the curb while simultaneously replacing that stinking thinking with the truth of God’s Word.

Here is the truth regarding my friend - and I’ll go out on a limb here and add this: Here is the truth regarding each of us: God has gifted us deeply and the enemy tries to mislead us. God showed me that with my friend, He wanted to take even the hard times and surprise him with His presence.

As I look back upon my life, I can easily see many times when God surprised me with His presence. Like the time in college when a friend threw me a surprise birthday party - something that I had never experienced before - and it took my heart such a deep grip of love I could not help but sob uncontrollably for several minutes. I felt loved. Surprised!

Then there was the time about three years ago when I began experiencing frequent panic attacks. During one such attack, I happened to be driving home at night when my mind began to race with uncontrollable fear and panic. I felt so overwhelmed that I thought I needed to pull over to the side of the road and call for help. As I cried out to God, I simply said, “Father, I need You to help me.”

In that very moment, my phone rang. On the other end was a voice I had not heard from in a few years…a friend who happened to be a Christian counselor. Before I could even tell him what was going on he asked, “When’s the last time someone asked Dennis Jernigan if he was alright?” He went on to say that he assumed everyone thought I was always OK because of who I was. He said, “The Lord just now impressed upon me to give you a call and ask if everything is OK with you.” Of course, I was immediately surprised to find the fear and panic were suddenly being alleviated as I poured out my heart to him. He talked me home and encouraged me to just keep breathing. Talk about being surprised by the Lord’s presence!

Recently, my wife, Melinda, was presenting her jewelry line at a women’s expo. Although she did well in sales, she felt that perhaps the setting was not the best for presentation of her line of jewelry and she wondered why the Lord had her there. During the course of the day, she began a conversation with another woman. After several minutes of conversation, the woman recognized Melinda and told her she had first heard of us when our children attended a camp she was helping direct back in the day.

Melinda shared with her how our children had been ministered to at that camp…that the older children were attending the camp when the twins came 9 weeks early and we almost lost Melinda and how grateful she was for the way the camp and camp counselors had taken care of our children through that week of fiery trial. Melinda was able to express gratitude for all this woman had done for her 25 years ago! A surprise of God’s presence at just the right moment!

During that same women’s expo, Melinda met a young wife and mother who came by her booth. Although Melinda did not recognize her at first, this young beautiful mom told her of the many times, as a teenager, she had spent the night in our home with our daughters (who are still her friends to this day) and how she always felt so loved…felt such peace…felt so safe…and how grateful she was for Melinda’s example of the love of God to her during such formative years. A beautiful surprise blessing from God spoken to my wife at just the right moment! Melinda feels that both these encounters were the reason she was to be a part of this expo…and both came as precious surprises of God’s presence unwrapped like a gift on one’s birthday! We should expect nothing less from such an amazing God. This may sound crazy, but we shouldn’t be surprised at all by the fact that our God loves to surprise His children!

….but just as it is written,
“THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD,
AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN,
ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”

Let’s be honest. Who doesn’t like to be surprised by unexpected blessings? I love a surprise visit from one of my children or one of my grandchildren. I love when an old friend calls out of the blue and we take up right where we left off from years before.

In our relationship with God, why should we not expect Him to surprise us with His presence in ways we had never expected? Even though God is always with me, I still find myself being surprised by just how much He loves me and lavishes that love on me. Still surprised at how awesome He is at taking any circumstance - be it good or bad - and using it for my good and His glory. I love those kinds of surprises. Even though it shouldn’t surprise us at all that our God is like that, I still love this little unexpected moments of being surprised by His presence. Here’s a thought: Let’s live our lives like that…expecting to be surprised by ever-deepening expressions of God’s love for us and presence with us. I kinda like it that way…just saying!
Dennis Jernigan

To listen to The Dennis Jernigan Podcast on this subject, go to http://podcast.dennisjernigan.com/e/i-like-it-that-way/

Picture courtesy of https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2018/03/09/10/30/girl-3211146_1280.jpg