Who is wise

Today's readings
Tomorrow's readings

"In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing" Ezra 1:1

I took the title of this post from the Corinthians section today but I wanted to focus on something here from Ezra. I have been asked more times than I can count how we can know the will of God. That is a very very hard subject and beyond the scope of something like my postings (although might be a good topic for a running commentary). But the thing that always strikes me is that we continually look inside the church or our own lives for sign's of God's presence. Now that is a good thing and we should do that but we tend to be isolationist and think that the world offers no good thing. True, there is much of the unsaved world that is dark and dead and in need of a Savior. But then I run across things like this in Scripture and I am reminded that the Lord is Lord of ALL not just the church. His ways are not our ways and He can often use the unbelieving to accomplish His ends and be a sign to His people that He is in control. I often look for evidence of God's power outside the church (church as a whole that is) and see Him acting in ways that I never would have guessed. Now we need to be very careful and have a discerning attitude to sift the counterfeit from the real which can sometimes be difficult. But I think it is a mistake to shut our minds to the fact that God sometimes works through those that we would normally have no contact with. Which we should all be thinking sounds a lot like the behavior of the Pharisees or the older brother to the prodigal son. God's wisdom is a stumbling block, and even a stumbling block to those of us who have been saved at times. May God bless us richly this day and give us the eyes to see Him even where we do not expect Him to be.