Got Any Spare Change?

Matthew 2:19-23

¹⁹ After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt ²⁰ and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

²¹ So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. ²² But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, ²³ and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

So when, exactly, did God change His mind?  If Jesus was prophesied as a Nazarene, why the extra step, a false alarm to rise and return to Israel?

1 Samuel 15:29

He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind.

If God does not change His mind, if God was not outsmarted by Herod's son ascending the throne after him, what was this?

Isaiah 55:8-9

⁸ “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.







I don't presume to know the mind of God; all I can attest is what I have experienced personally, or what God has provided all of us in the Scriptures.  I do know God has "geared me up," so to speak, to face one event, and has led me onto an entirely different path.  Is this because of choices I made in the interim?  Perhaps.  Is this because the actions of others have had some impact on how things developed?  I'm not sure.  Was it some sort of heavenly test? a dry run?  I can't say.  But the way in which I meet each calling, and the disappointment, confusion or relief I experience when things turn out differently than I expect, change me, change who I am, and change my relationship with my Heavenly Father. 

God has called us to be faithful.  To pray.  To boldly approach His throne.  To ask that it may be given.  To seek and know Him.