Our God is not only the God of miracles, but he is the God of the unexpected. The God of surprises. The God of unfolding goodness you could have never imagined on your own.

But, in order to experience this goodness, faith will be required. A strong stomach to handle the ups and downs that lead to the destination you do not yet know. God wants to take you on an adventure, but that adventure will include an element of uncertainty that will make you highly uncomfortable.

Will you still show up for it? Or will you sit it out?

Sometimes God doesn’t reveal all the details to us because he knows we would dismiss ourselves from the opportunity if we knew. He keeps the details in the dark, only showing us one step at a time, so we are willing to take that step even though the journey awaiting is harder than we anticipate. So, our loving and all-knowing, good, good father withholds some of the information so you will still show up. He doesn’t want you to miss what he has for you, so some things will just be kept secret until you step into them.

Kinda like my real life experiences yesterday. Y’all, it’s story time …

I’m here on the island of Oahu hosting the BIG Life Hawaii Retreat. Yesterday morning was our sunrise hike and mountain top worship experience. Sounds fabulous, right? You would sign up for that, wouldn’t you? You would want to be there for that.

We arrive to the trail head at the butt crack of dawn. 5:30 am. Do you know how dark it is at 5:30 am here? They say it’s darkest before dawn … well, it was before dawn and it was dark. As we get out of our cars, my retreat girls begin asking their very justified questions about this hike. How hard is it? How muddy is it? How long is it? How are we going to see?

These were all details I did not know. However, I had been told by several locals this was the trail we must hike for the ultimate sunrise destination. Lanaki Pillbox. They said we could surely do it. I believed them.

The trail begins in a residential hillside neighborhood. It looks very unassuming. Low threat. Unimpressive. Steps off the neighborhood street, we find a steep incline at the beginning of a small trail climbing rocks. There were ropes.

If you’re new to climbing, the sight of ropes is a sign. That sign is, “THIS ISN’T GOING TO BE EASY.” I think to myself, “Pamela, this may not have been the hike to have chosen for these girls. What have you gotten into here?”

The questions continue. Is this going to get harder? How much more are we going to climb? Woah, can we really do this?

My answer … I don’t know. Let’s take the next step and see.

With only the light of our cell phones, we can see nothing but the next step in front of us. And while sometimes on our hands and knees bear crawling, we were able to take that next step. We hoisted the one in front of us, and reached for the one behind us. Our progress was slow, and the dark remained.

We couldn’t see to the left or right. That was pure darkness. We could only see the rock in front of us, and the souls on the journey with us.

What had I gotten us into? My sense of adventure sometimes outweighs the desire of those with me to endure hard things.

We kept climbing. It was hard.

Then, the sun began to rise. The break of dawn. The most brilliant deep orange filled the sky just as we reached our first peak. We could finally see where we were and what we had just done.

And let me tell you something, we would have never done what we had just done if we could have seen it. But every single one of us were so proud that we had pushed through and stood on top of that mountain to witness the gift of a new day in the most remarkable way.

We played the song “Counting My Blessings”:

One, two, three up to infinity
I’d run out of numbers
Before I could thank You for everything
God, I’m still counting my blessings
For all that You’ve done in my life
The more that I look in the details
The more of Your goodness I find
Father on this side of heaven
I know that I’ll run out of time
But I will keep counting my blessings
Knowing I can’t count that high

Wow, was I counting my blessings. This experience being one of them for sure. An experience I wouldn’t have ever knowingly chosen. An experience I would have counted as too hard. An experience I would have missed had I been able to see the entire climb. An experience I would have cancelled if it weren’t for the mystery of the dark.
The mystery of the dark led us to a blessing none of us will forget!

And I think this is exactly why God doesn’t give us all the details of our journey in advance. We wouldn’t show up if we knew the hardship. We wouldn’t go if we knew the struggle. And we would miss all he had for us along the way.

So, he tells us just enough to make us want to go. He gives us just enough light for the next step. He gives us other people in the same mystery of darkness to journey with us who don’t know the way either, but they’re willing to see where it goes.

Job 5:9 MSG “After all, he’s famous for great and unexpected acts; there’s no end to his surprises.”

If you’re going through a hard time right now, know this wasn’t a surprise to God, but maybe he didn’t disclose it to you in advance because he didn’t want you to miss the ultimate goodness that awaits you in this. Maybe this isn’t here to punish you, but bless you beyond your wildest imagination, it just won’t quite look the way you thought it would at first.

Don’t check out here. Don’t turn around. You are stronger than you know. You can do this. God brought you to it, now he will equip you to get through it. He knew it was coming and he has something bigger for you on the other side of it. Show up for it my sister.

Remember the story of Jesus meeting the woman at the well? She lived a shameful life and she would have never gone to the well to draw water that day if she would have known the Messiah was there. That detail was intentionally left out. She would have dismissed herself from the opportunity because of her own shame and insecurities.

She didn’t know, so she showed up. Jesus met her that day and her whole world changed. Not only her whole world, but her whole family’s. She is the one Jesus would choose to first tell the world of his identity. She had no idea the impact of her trip to the well that day.

She went not knowing.

I wonder what God has waiting for you and you just don’t know it. He’s keeping it undisclosed because it’s so big it would scare you. It’s so extraordinary you would assume you’re never good enough for it. Or maybe the path there is so hard you would talk yourself out of ever taking the first step.

That’s why you don’t know what is unfolding here sister. Full disclosure would not benefit you, it would detour you. You would miss the greatest gifts your father has for you.

So just like our sunrise hike and mountaintop worship was a little more like unequipped rock climbing in the dark, yet the greatest adventure we could have asked for … life is sometimes the same. It’s not what you expected. If you would have expected this, you wouldn’t have followed through with it. But, you were supposed to be here. God has something here for you.

It’s always up to you how you receive the unexpected. What one person calls an adventure another may call a nightmare. You choose. How will you receive the unexpected surprises of life?

God is famous for great and unexpected acts. Now maybe it’s still just unexpected and you haven’t discovered the greatness in it yet … keep going. Please show up for your life today. Show up with your best attitude and expectant heart that the infamous God is unveiling greatness especially for you.

You rarely remember the paved sidewalk along a familiar flat road. But dang you remember the rocky climb that led you to a mountain peak overlooking the sun rises on the ocean with shiloutted islands and whales playing. You remember if, if you chose it. That’s the important part … if you choose it.

I wonder how many people have heard of this hike, saw the peak from far below, caught a glimpse of the trail climbing straight up, and turned around to leave? I wonder how many moments of divine strength they forfeited? How many untold treasures of beauty they missed because it wasn’t what they expected? It was too hard. It was too high.

It was a blessing to count. 1, 2, 3, up to infinity. But, when you dismiss yourself from the blessing, it doesn’t count. God kept us in the dark so we didn’t miss our blessing.

I wonder where you have been turning around and leaving, ultimately forfeiting goodness because it wasn’t what you expected?

You can’t expect what your unexpected God is doing. Stop trying to figure it all out and plan for it, and girl just show up for it.

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