Maybe your life journey has been similar to mine. I have found that my life has been full of surprises. I really mean that. I would have never imagined happening to me what has happened. When I was in high school, I would never have dreamed that I would become a professor one day. I would have missed it by a mile -- by a hundred miles. Leaving Hawaii for Biola in 1971 was never on my radar. I was completely happy as a music major at the University of Hawaii. Being offered a teaching position in Greek at Biola in 1976 was another complete surprise. I wasn't even aware of the opening, and even if I had been, I probably wouldn't have applied for it, so unqualified did I think I was for the position. I never planned to write a beginning Greek grammar or an intermediate one for that matter. In both instances, the publishers contacted me. I didn't contact them. In fact, when I started seminary, I never expected to write anything that would ever be published. When in 1998 the Lord moved us from Southern California, where we had lived for 27 wonderful years, to the tobacco fields of Granville County, North Carolina, that was a completed surprise. Getting a doctorate in Europe was never in my plan until the Lord sent Becky and me to Germany in the summer of 1978 as short term missionaries with Greater Europe Mission. These are all open doors that have occured, and I've found myself amazed to see what God had in mind as I simply said to him, "If that's what you want, Lord, then you can unfold it your way."
It is God's sovereign right to do whatever he wants to do with us, for whatever purpose he wishes. Since he is sovereign, he is in full control. No door has ever opened without first getting God's nod. No door opens without his approval. Like I said earlier, my call to a career in teaching was a complete surprise. Yet I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life.
Be willing to accept God's surprising will for your life. Do your best not to fight it. Then watch him work.
