Go deeper with others.

One thing you notice when you read the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry – and especially in his encounters with people – is that he was somewhat unpredictable. Which makes sense, because our own experience is that God the Father is sometimes unpredictable as well – we want him to be on our schedule, to fix our problems when we want them fixed, but his timing and his schedule is different from ours. One of the keys to life is to trust in his wisdom and his timing, and the story of “dueling miracles” from Mark chapter 5 is a great illustration of that.

Those who observed Jesus noticed something very unusual about him: he hung out with all the wrong people. Instead of spending his time with the religious, the righteous and the “good people,” he surrounded himself with folks the “good” people had given up on – including the worst of the worst. The friends he chose to spend time with tell us much about the power of grace and about how it works.

They say you should never meet your heroes, because invariably you’ll be disappointed if you do – it’s hard for a hero to live up to expectations. That seemed true for Jesus, as well – most of the people who had followed him and hung on to his every word and been amazed by his miracles were grossly disappointed in him at the end of his life. They betrayed, denied, and abandoned him at the cross, but then something happened: a divine encounter that changed everything.