The Wine Ran Out

There have been seasons in my life when it seemed like every week I had a story of God working a miracle in the lives of people around me; both people I knew and random strangers that I would encounter as I went about my day. Cancer and depression being healed, words of knowledge that sparked conversations leading to people encountering God for the first time, financial provision, people set free from addictions etc etc... And then there are seasons where nothing seems to happen. Where all I have are the stories from back then and it's easy to start to wonder if I had just imagined all those things.

During this MCO season I've been reflecting on what was different in my life in those times, and as I have, a passage from the book of John has challenged me. It's one I've read hundreds of times but never paid that much attention to before, it is the recount of the Wedding at Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle, turning water into wine. So often I stop at the reading of this that people love to give - "...see Jesus isn't against fun and alcohol, he actually made wine for drunk people at a party..."  A lovely, and potentially comforting message, but not really a challenging one. 

But now as I read it, it challenges me and reminds me of ways that I lived in those seasons where I witnessed so many more miracles than I do today. Whilst there is no formula I realise that we can live in ways that lead us to be ready and open when God wants to use us or we can close ourselves off from this. 

So here's how I am challenged:

1) The wine ran out. In order for the miracle happen there had to be a need. Over the years I realise that I've trained myself to become more and more self sufficient, to make sure that I'm not in need, to make sure that I have things figured out, to only confront things I have an answer to, to leave the things that are beyond me to people better equipped than I. After all we don't want to be foolish. My dreams may be God-sized but do my daily actions lead me into situations where I NEED God to move. Have I turned wisdom into an excuse to stay into my comfort zone?

2) Jesus' instructions were weird and involved hard work and the potential to look rather stupid. Give your master water from the purification jars? If it had just been water they would not have been popular and I'm pretty sure that as a servant that's not a good situation to be in. Even before that though, they were instructed to fill 6 20-30 gallon pots with water. Now I thought that surely these must be smaller than US gallons ... it turns out they were actually bigger. So the minimum amount of water they had to carry was 600 litres!!!! That's a lot of water to carry. They had to be obedient to follow weird instructions. 

When I think back, so many situations where God showed up involved being obedient to promptings from God that seemed weird at the time. Things like "Go and try on a dress in that shop" just so I could talk the lady working there. "Go and sit next to that homeless man and ask him if his name is John." "Go pray for the person standing at the back left corner of the room." Weird promptings to call someone at some crazy time of the night... All these instructions were weird and left me with plenty of scope to look dumb. And yet, God showed up and moved in crazy ways. Had I not been obedient I wouldn't have seen God move.

3) Jesus wouldn't have done the miracle without his mother asking him to do it. I realise that I find myself in situations where miraculous things happen far more when I'm hanging out with people who are also wanting to see God's Kingdom come in powerful ways. We encourage each other to go beyond our comfort zones, to listen for random promptings, to act on these even if they seem weird. Do I have these people in my life now? Do we create space to stir a longing for the coming of God's Kingdom? Am I this kind of person to anybody?

Life is gradually opening up a bit here in Malaysia; things will be different for a while, but we are allowed out more and time at home is gradually reducing. As these transitions happen I am challenged to not set wisdom above faith, to be quick to listen to God's leading and quick to act on these leadings, and to cultivate friendships that encourage me to long to see God at work more than I currently do. Every day as I watch the news I see situations that desperately need to change but are so far overwhelmingly complex I cannot see how this change is possible. Now is definitely not the time to curate our lives so that we don't need God to intervene; now is the time to press into situations where the wine has run out and invite God to move.