⁴⁰ A man with leprosy^[a] came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

⁴¹ Jesus was indignant.^[b] He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” ⁴² Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

⁴³ Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: ⁴⁴ “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” ⁴⁵ Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

Mark 1:40-45 NIV

I can see this story, and many other miracles of Jesus, depicted in fuzzy flannel graph in my mind.  I’m not sure if the flannel itself was fuzzy or if my childhood memories, in general, have lost their sharpness in my middle-aged brain.  What I do remember is that Jesus’ instructions to this man confused me.  Be quiet.  Don’t tell anyone, He said.  What?  How could this man not tell EVERYONE about the most exciting thing that’s happened to him?  And furthermore, didn’t Jesus want others to know about Him?  The healed man obviously didn’t understand either and chose what HE thought was best – blabbing about the miracle to anyone who would listen.  And it hindered the ministry of Jesus.  Our Savior didn’t (and still doesn’t) just want people to know ABOUT Him.  He wants people to know HIM.  The crowds became too interested in the works He could do to listen to His message of love and forgiveness.

In Acts 22, we find the apostle Paul in a similar struggle of good vs. God.  After his dramatic and miraculous blinding and conversion, God speaks to him (Did you hear that?  He didn’t just have a feeling.  GOD SPOKE TO HIM!) and told him to leave Jerusalem to preach to the Gentiles.  And yet Paul argued that his own people knew his conversion story and would listen to him.  Bringing the Good News of Jesus to the Jews was a noble endeavor, but not what God had for Paul.  So like the patient Father He is, he calmly reiterated that Paul was to go.

Not even by taking off my socks and my shoes can I count the number of times I decided to forge ahead into something “good” without waiting for confirmation that it was from God.  I get overcommitted by jumping to fill a need that I don’t have time for.  And I get over my head when I tackle projects that aren’t in my wheelhouse.  More importantly, when I lack the discernment to decipher good deeds from God ordained ministry, I miss what God is inviting me to be a part of and potentially rob someone else of the blessing that was theirs.

What makes sense in my feeble brain is most often not God’s best.  Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”declares the Lord.⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  

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