Anticipation

I didn’t know what to expect.  A Japanese singer is working with a Brazilian and American band.  A solo act comes from a duo broken after more than a decade of being together.  A pop sound emerging from an alternative, fusion, and mixed cultural soup.  I couldn’t imagine so I didn’t.  I opened myself up to the experience.  It was magical.
 
Miho and her band gave the crowded room a unique, captivating, and energizing experience.  I still don’t know how to describe the music but I want to hear more.  I cannot quite verbalize my reactions yet if I can source a CD I know it will squeeze into my overcrowded Ipod.  I’m not even sure I know what I experienced; my memories are a series of bursts in amazed wonder.  I do know I walked away energized, encouraged, and filled with hope.
 
Far too often I know exactly what God can, will, and is going to do.  I anticipate the triggers to good events.  I know how God fits in society today.  Boundaries are predictable.
 
I am so wrong, short-sighted, and ignorant.
 
I find myself reading a story of old with a bizarre twist.  The description of a group of women taking charge, forcing life’s issues, and essentially robbing a man of his role in life’s creation tells me bad things are going to happen!  Yet the writer suggests simply “that's when God's Branch will sprout green and lush.  The produce of the country will give Israel's survivors something to be proud of again.  Oh, they'll hold their heads high!” (Isaiah 4.2)  Good things out of strange events!
 
Miho reminded me of a few forgotten life facts.
 
1.      I do not understand God.  I may appreciate, long, and even thirst for God but I do not fully comprehend.
2.      My black and whites are strictly that, mine.  The frames of my life are uniquely founded on universal principles.  Never assume they automatically apply to others.
3.      Experiencing God rests on a simple premise; be open to the present.  Open, willing, and interested. 
 
Life is magical.