Love Surprises

The hospital George Clooney's kids were born in, a startling return from a holiday vacation, and the best mold juice ever made.

This week is the ninth in a ten-part series on learning to love better with our minds… and today, we need to mentally prepare for the unexpected.  From doubts and fears to unanswered questions – it is time to not mind being surprised.

"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"

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Transcript

Alexander Fleming was many things, but thankfully neat and tidy wasn’t one of them.  It turns out that his disorganized and messy tendencies would end up saving millions of lives.  Fleming was a Scotsman living in London after the Great War, and as a civilian, he would learn how to stop a ravage of war he had seen time and time again take the lives of his fellow soldiers when he served in the Army Medical Corp throughout World War I.

Fleming was born in 1881 in Ayrhshire, Scotland, but after the War he would move to London where he would work as a researcher at St. Mary’s Hospital.  St. Mary’s Hospital still exists as an active hospital (Prince Wiliams and Prince Harry were both born there… and in a weird six degrees of separation connection so were George Clooney’s children).  Located in Westminster, London and founded in 1845, the hospital has been fully modernized on the inside, but on the outside, it still bears the classical Victorian style of the mid-1800’s.  Red brick facades, detailed stonework, and arched windows create an imposing look to this storied institution.

Nestled within the walls of St. Mary’s of London is a museum built around Alexander’s original research laboratory.  Today, everything is beautifully preserved, but in 1928, when Dr. Fleming left for a two-week holiday trip, his workbench was far from pristine.  It reflected more of an absent-minded professor approach to cleanliness that left much to be desired in terms of sanitation.  And that mess, ended up changing the world.

I’m Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better podcast where we explore the truths and lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill – something we can get better at and hone along the way. 

This year, we are learning to love better by exploring the greatest commandment – Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  We’ve searched our hearts and plumbed the depths of our soul for how to love the Lord better, and it is time to investigate our minds.  How do we love God with all our mind?  What does that even mean?  This week is the ninth in a ten-part series on learning to love better with our minds… and today, we need to mentally prepare for the unexpected.  From doubts and fears to unanswered questions – it is time to not mind being surprised.

What Alexander Fleming discovered when he came back from vacation was a mold problem.  Dr. Fleming was a bacteriologist, having seen the impact of bacterial infections during the Great War, he had set out to see if there was any way to combat the devastating impacts of these infections on soldiers and civilians alike.  When he left on holiday, he left a series of Petri dishes with staphylococcus colonies to grow on his workbench… when he returned he found one of those Petri dishes overtaken by mold – and he noted that the mold had killed the bacteria.  That mold, was a specific variety called – Penicillium notatum.  That’s right, Dr. Fleming had discovered penicillin.

I often find that my journey with Scripture is a lot like Dr. Fleming’s workbench.  I mean to stay organized in my Bible study, but the reality of study is oftentimes a lot messier than the Bible reading schedules I perpetually keep enforcing upon myself.  I mean to be systematic, but between preparing for classes, random questions asked by others, and a tendency to go down theological rabbit holes – my workbench is a lot less tidy than I’d like.  I find myself hopping from Old Testament history books to New Testament epistles only to be reminded of a text in the minor prophets that I think might connect… but in the end doesn’t connect, but gives me an entirely new perspective on something I wasn’t even studying for.  Just last week, I was studying for a 2 Samuel class only to find myself spending a good hour looking up history of the Temple Mount which led me to a study of angels, which had my mind meandering off down a path of thought regarding Jesus throughout history, which led to me realizing that Jesus’ conversation with the thief on the cross is a beautiful redemption story that shows us the power of Jesus to invite us back to the Paradise mankind was forced out of because of Adam’s choices… and if you find that train of thought hard to follow – it’s because it wasn’t a train, it was more of a meandering wander through the Scripture.  I want to be systematic, but sometimes I find the best gems when my Bible study is cluttered with unexpected inquiries and questions.

Dr. Fleming discovered penicillin by accident, but it was a beautiful accident borne out of a desire to learn even when research got messy.  When Fleming discovered what he would later call, “his mold juice” he didn’t just throw it away and curse his own unkempt ways – he saw the contaminated Petri dish through the eyes of a researcher and it became a puzzling discovery instead of a disappointing failure.

The Bible is full of those that loved the Lord, but were surprised by the road of faith.  Even John the Baptist found himself with question for Jesus when he sent disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

God has a way of surprising us, and part of the joy of loving God is in realizing that He will surprise you.  Moses was surprised by the burning bush which led him to turn aside and see this fascinating event – the rest was history.  Esther and Mordecai were surprised to find themselves at the center of a genocidal plot and Esther’s opportunity to save all of Israel led her to great faith and trust in the Lord.  Job’s depth of sorrow and loss created a dark sense of wonder and surprise in his soul that caused him to question God… but through that questioning Job came to understand God better.  Throughout history, God has revealed Himself and His will to people at surprising times and through surprising things like pain, grief, and trial.

Initially, Alexander Fleming came back from vacation to what seemed like a mess, but in the end, he made history.  What started out looking like a setback was instead a revelation.

This principle of unexpected growth is found everywhere in relation to Jesus.  Saul was surprised by Jesus on the road to Damascus.  Nathaniel was surprised by the character of Jesus.  The men on the road to Emmaus were surprised by the teaching of Jesus, and Thomas was surprised by the risen Jesus as he beheld the nail holes in His hands and the wound in His side.

And when we think about loving God, I’m not sure why we are surprised that He surprises us.  In our human relationships, it is the mystery that adds all the flavor and zest.  What we love (and sometimes hate) most about other humans is that they are individuals we have their own views, personalities, and oftentimes we are surprised by others in the most wonderful ways.  If we were all exactly alike, it would be a pretty boring world.

If we are going to love God with all our mind (and love our neighbor, too), we are going to have to embrace surprise and the messy process of getting to know Him.  God doesn’t change – He is the same today, yesterday, and forever… but we are constantly changing.  Verses that didn’t stand out to us in our twenties, absolutely vibrate with color and power in our fifties.  Surprise, wonder, and even our struggle with doubts are often the birth pangs of deeper understanding of Scripture, and by extension, a deeper understanding of God.

One of my favorite verses is from the 119th Psalm.  In verse 18, it simply says “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”

God’s law is full of wonderful and beautiful things… but sometimes my eyes have to be opened to fully see those things.  And do you know what it looks like when someone’s eyes open really, really wide?  It looks like surprise.

So, if we are going to love better – we need to embrace surprise.  Another way to think of the subject is to ask yourself – are your prepared to be wrong? Are you ready to have your assumptions challenged?

People who seek understanding have better relationships.  Proverbs agrees with this idea when it says, “Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent.”

It is easy to get defensive when things don’t go our way, after all, surprise can feel a lot like alarm or danger.  Many relationships fail because the differences between two people seem so vast that one or both parties feels threatened.

And I’m convinced, for many people, that is exactly why they don’t follow God.  God is SO much bigger, SO much wiser, SO much more EVERYTHING than us that the contrast is more than just surprising, it’s alarming.

This difficult with a God that is different than us is talked about by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians when he says,

“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

When we are dealing with a God who is so much wiser than us, it can lead to doubt and stumbling because He doesn’t act how we would expect or respond to our demands.  In short, because God isn’t an idol we made, but is instead a real, living, thinking, creative, individual – we find He doesn’t fit into the neat little boxes we expected Him to.

If you spend any amount of time reading the Bible, you will find God doing and saying things that make you uncomfortable.  The Bible contains many uncomfortable accounts – the destruction of entire nations (including women and children), instructions regarding things like slavery or gender roles can be off-putting or uncomfortable to discuss with our modern cultural views, and the same Bible that tells you to always rejoice in the Lord also speaks of a God that has allowed His prophets, His followers, and His own Son to be killed.  In a world of great suffering, where is this God of mercy and steadfast love?  In a world of injustice, where is this God of justice?

The Bible is full of these sorts of difficult problems, but it is also full of answers if you keep digging through the surprise and the doubt.  In the book of Jude, we are told to “have mercy on those who doubt” and in Isaiah 1:18 God challenges us to reason together with Him.  To love God with all your mind is to apply your mind to understand Him even though He will make you uncomfortable and there will be unanswered questions.

I know enough about God to know that He must exist.  The evidence in science makes it clear that God is… and the evidence found in archaeology, specific-fulfilled prophecies from the Bible, the continuity of the Scripture, and the evidence of the empty tomb of Jesus is more than enough to prove to me the Bible is the inspired Word of God.  This I know – God is and the Bible is – and even though the Bible may say some unexpected things – part of loving God is being ready to be surprised.

And by the way, Dr. Fleming – he was surprised by penicillin, but even as he wrote up his research paper on the subject, he doubted that his mold juice would ever be a practical solution.  He followed up on the research because it was a surprising truth, but he was skeptical it could ever be applied.  Boy was he wrong.

The Bible is similar.  When you start reading the truth about God, it can be hard to see where the application is.  Just keep reading.  Two thousand years of Christians have been surprised by how the Word can transform them.

Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

Learn to be love better.  Learn to let the Word surprise you.

As always, thank you for listening and hopefully we've done something to help make your life a little bit better.  If you have a chance to rate, review or share the podcast it would be a blessing.  By sharing with others or leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify, you help us reach more people. 

Or maybe you have a fun or obscure history account, a feel-good news story, or a riveting scientific fact you think could help us love better.  If so, I’d love to hear it!  Feel free to email me at scott@biblegrad.com 

And if you are ever in the Louisville, KY area, I’d like to invite you to worship with us at the Eastland congregation.  We meet for worship every Sunday and have Bible classes for all ages Wednesday’s, too.  If you want more information about Eastland, visit us at eastlandchristians.org.  Or if you are looking for more tools to enrich your Bible study, visit my personal Bible site, Biblegrad.com, where you can sign up for daily Bible devotionals called Biblebites and receive them in your email each morning, take online Bible classes, or find videos that will help you study through the Bible throughout the year. 

And until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”