From the archives of Evelyn Roberts
When Richard was a boy — about six or seven years old — we lived out in the country on a ranch we called Robin Hood Farm. Many a morning, I’d get Richard ready for school and watch him walk up the road to catch the bus. I’d dress him in neat little long-sleeved shirts much of the time. He’d leave home with his shirt pressed, his sleeves buttoned, and his hair combed just right. You could tell by the way he’d swing his little lunch pail that he was a child who was enjoying life, without a care in the world.
Now the little boy who got off the bus at the end of the school day and started back up the road always looked like a different child! Buttons torn off his sleeves, his shirt open, hair in his face! But he was still swinging that dinner bucket! We often remarked that Richard was our happy-go-lucky child.
Neither Oral nor I thought Richard would be the one in our family whom God would call into the ministry. But God had another plan. He could see in Richard what we couldn’t see. He had a plan for his life that we didn’t know. He had a calling for him that we hadn’t anticipated.
We discovered, as many parents do that you can never second-guess God. He often surprises us by His plans and His calling on our lives. He often uses the people whom others would consider the “least likely” for a particular job. He often leads in ways we don’t expect Him to lead. The Bible says in Isaiah 55:8˗9, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Look for God’s surprises today. Enjoy them. His surprises are for your good and for a purpose higher than you can imagine!
