Let's have a surprise party!

Have you ever attended a surprise party? My mom tried to throw a surprise birthday party for me when I was about 10 years old. I honestly had no clue what was going on until my friend spilled the beans. On one hand, it's great because you are in on the secret (Na, na, na, na, boo, boo!). On the other hand, you're stuck having to pretend to be surprised (Oh....uh....wow. A surprise party?? For me?).

My mom got another chance, though. When I graduated, she and another friend of mine got together to plan a surprise graduation party for me. This one worked! I was completely blown out of the water. I couldn't believe what they had done and to what great lengths they went to create a fake story (i.e. lie, yeah...I said it) so that I wouldn't find out about the party. We had a blast and I was so blessed by their thoughtfulness.

Half of the fun of the surprise party is the look on the recipient's face when you know they just got so much more than they expected and they are happy about it. Another word that could be used here would be "amazed."

Have you ever felt amazed like this?

We had a party for my daughter's birthday. She knew about the party, but the surprise was the cake. From the outside, it just looked like a regular cake with pink icing. However, once you cut into the cake, you could see a rainbow of bright beautiful colors. As you can tell from the look on her face, she had never seen anything like it!

Here is a thought that you may find shocking: something amazed Jesus much like the rainbow cake amazed my daughter. Something on earth "blew Jesus out of the water." I was stunned as I thought of that this morning, but the Bible tells us that Jesus, the Son of God, was amazed by something. It wasn't a religious teacher of the law. It wasn't the color of the floors in the synagogue (ahem). It was the fact that one man, a Roman officer, had true faith that was anything but typical. Jesus said he'd never seen a faith like that in all of Israel! The officer didn't believe in Jesus because someone told him to and it sounded good at the time. He believed because he understood that Jesus had the authority and power to heal someone that was important to him. His faith was based on humility (understanding his position as unworthy to even be in the presence of Jesus) and authority (acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God who has all authority to answer prayers).

I don't know about you, but I have been challenged to have a faith that is anything but typical. I want Jesus to look into my heart and be amazed!

Check it out: Matthew 8:5-13