Quotes & Sayings About Being Surprised By God

Even apart from the image of a truly merciless God that contradicts everything we can assume from what Jesus says about the Either of the lost, can we be surprised at a time when retributive punishments without an opportunity of probation are being increasingly abandoned in education and penal justice, that the idea not only of a lifelong, but even eternal punishment of body and soul, seems to many people absolutely monstrous. — Hans Kung

More importantly, I didn't know then that one day I would genuinely be free. That freedom came out of a thousand small steps of obedience, most of which I took during the waiting or limbo time. The more I learned to lean into Him on a daily basis and simply live out my faith in the everyday elements, the more I was prepared for the bigger steps when they arrived. Not only that, I was given the gift of living my life fully in the present, rather than being fixated and frustrated over some distant time or hope. In the crossroads called limbo, you do arrive at mile markers. You become more mature. More healed. Less surprised by or resistant to or unprepared for the good things God is giving you in the ordinary. Your challenge is to begin to embrace the waiting times as part of the overall journey. Limbo is a key part of the healing process! As you are faithful daily, He is working in you powerfully, and it all counts. Every single moment! — Suzanne Eller

Back on the ferry, I sip some vodka on the rocks and have a chat with God.
Me: (desperately) What the *&%$# am I going to do?
God:
Me: (surprised) Really? After all those Sundays of being a back up singer for Jesus, you got nothing to say?
God:
Me: (humbly) Help me out here. — Lexis De Rothschild

Everything in its time, and timing is God's playground. Trust me, being surprised by everything is so much better than needing to control everything. — Wm. Paul Young

When we are relaxed and reasonable content, we are naturally wise. We accept that life is unpredictable, unreliable. We say jokingly or philosophically, "Nothing is sure except death and taxes," or "God willing and the creek don't rise," reminding each other that, notwithstanding the level of planning, we are continually dealing with being surprised. We get startled. We recover. We are disappointed. We adjust. Mostly-with Wisdom intact-we manage. — Sylvia Boorstein

I should not be surprised," said Mr. Graham, "that the day should come when men will refuse to believe in God simply on the ground of the apparent injustice of things. They would argue that there might be either an omnipotent being who did not care, or a good being who could not help, but that there could not be a being both all good and omnipotent or else he would never have suffered things to be as they are. — George MacDonald

What is most important to us? What do we love? What is most dear to us?2 We shouldn't be surprised that these questions get to the core of our being. They also point to where we are headed. All roads eventually lead to our relationship with God. Do we love what he loves? Is he most dear to us? — Edward T. Welch

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself. — C.S. Lewis

How come when mortals want things, their only option is to make a deal with Hell and sell their soul? Why can't they make deals with God in exchange for good behavior?"
It was another of those rare moments when I'd surprised Carter. I waited for the glib answer I'd mentioned to Seth, something along the lines of goodness being its own reward. The angel considered for several seconds. "Humans make those deals all the time," he said finally. "They just don't make them with God."
"Then who are they making them with?" I exclaimed.
"Themselves. — Richelle Mead

I'm taking this time to create my day and I'm infecting the quantum field. Now if (it) is in fact the observer's watching me the whole time that I'm doing this and there is a spiritual aspect to myself, then show me a sign today that you paid attention to any one of these things that I created, and bring them in a way that I won't expect, so I'm as surprised at my ability to be able to experience these things. And make it so that I have no doubt that it's come from you,' and so I live my life, in a sense, all day long thinking about being a genius or thinking about being the glory and the power of God or thinking about being unconditional love. — Joe Dispenza

I had years of partying, and I was kind of surprised and happy I survived it all. Now, being a parent, I look back on it thinking, Oh God, the things you did! — Jeff Bridges

But now I realise that true charity consists in putting up with all one's neighbour's faults, never being surprised by his weakness, and being inspired by the least of his virtues . . . When God, under the old law, told His people to love their neighbours as themselves, He had not yet come down to earth. As He knew how much we love ourselves, He could not ask us to do more. But when Jesus gave His apostles a "new commandment, His own commandment," He did not ask only that we should love our neighbours as ourselves but that we should love them as He loves them and as He will love them to the end of time. O Jesus, I know You command nothing that is impossible. You know how weak and imperfect I am, and You know only too well that I could never love the other nuns as You love them if You Yourself did not love them within me. — John Beevers

However softly we speak, God is so close to us that he can hear us; nor do we need wings to go in search of him, but merely to seek solitude and contemplate him within ourselves, without being surprised to find such a good Guest there. — John Of The Cross

People who think they have no belief quite often say they want to pray but they do not know who or what they could be praying to. Aquinas would not say to such people, 'Ah, but you see, if you became a believer, a Christian, we would change all that. You would come to understand to whom you are praying.' Not at all. He would say to such people, 'If you became a Christian you would stop being surprised or ashamed of your condition. You would be happy with it. For faith would assure you that you could not know what God is until he reveals himself to us openly.' — Herbert McCabe

It seems that a profound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow-creatures is utterly unknown. Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old. In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows. And why, if this
and much more than this is true
why are we yet surprised in the window corner by a sudden vision that the young man in the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most solid, the best known to us
why indeed? For the moment after we know nothing about him.
Such is the manner of our seeing. Such the conditions of our love. — Virginia Woolf