God Is Still Working

The Curious Pilgrim — Daily Office Reflection
Saturday, August 15, 2026

Psalm 106:33–43 | Psalm 108:1–6 | Judges 16:1–14 | Acts 7:30–43 | John 5:1–18

Sometimes the Daily Office readings seem to have very little to do with one another.

Today is one of those days.

We move from the failures of Israel, to Samson and Delilah, to Stephen retelling the story of Moses, and finally to Jesus healing a man at the pool of Bethesda.

What connects all of this?

Perhaps it is something Jesus says in today’s Gospel:

“My Father is still working, and I also am working.” — John 5:17

God is still working.

But there is another side to that truth.

We must decide how we will respond to what God is doing.

Psalm 106 remembers Israel’s repeated failures.

God had delivered the people. God had provided for them. God had established a covenant with them.

Yet they repeatedly turned away.

They made choices.

Those choices had consequences.

Still, the larger story of the psalm is the story of God’s enduring covenant love.

Human beings may be unfaithful.

God remains faithful.

Then Psalm 108 turns toward praise:

“My heart is firmly fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and make melody.”

After remembering human failure, the psalmist turns again toward God.

Perhaps that is one of the great lessons of the pilgrimage.

We wander.

We make mistakes.

We take wrong turns.

We experience consequences.

But grace keeps calling us back.

Then we meet Samson.

Samson has been given an extraordinary gift.

Strength.

But having a gift from God does not guarantee that we will use that gift wisely.

The Philistine rulers want to discover the source of Samson’s strength, so they offer Delilah money to uncover his secret.

She repeatedly questions him.

Samson repeatedly deceives her with false answers.

It almost becomes a game.

But Samson is playing with something dangerous.

His strength is a gift.

What he does with that gift is his responsibility.

That raises a question for me:

What am I doing with what God has given me?

Then Stephen takes us back into Israel’s history.

He tells the story of Moses.

God appeared to Moses in the burning bush.

God heard the suffering of the people.

God sent Moses to deliver them.

Yet the people repeatedly resisted the one God had sent.

They turned away.

They made an idol.

They worshiped what their own hands had made.

Once again, God was working, but people had to decide how they would respond.

And then we come to the pool of Bethesda.

There is a man there who has been ill for thirty-eight years.

Thirty-eight years.

Jesus sees him.

Jesus knows his situation.

And Jesus asks him an extraordinary question:

“Do you want to be made well?”

The man explains that he has no one to help him into the pool when the water is stirred. Someone always gets there before him.

Jesus doesn’t put him into the pool.

Jesus simply says:

“Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

And he does.

After thirty-eight years, the man can walk.

Imagine seeing that!

Surely everyone would celebrate.

Surely everyone would rejoice.

Surely everyone would want to know more about the person who had made this possible.

But that isn’t what happens.

Some religious authorities notice something else.

The man is carrying his mat on the Sabbath.

A man who has been unable to walk for thirty-eight years is walking right in front of them—

and they see a violation of the rules.

That challenges me.

How easy is it to become so certain about how God is supposed to work that I fail to recognize what God is actually doing?

Jesus later says:

“My Father is still working, and I also am working.”

Instead of settling the controversy, those words intensify it.

The authorities begin seeking to kill Jesus. They object not only to what he has done on the Sabbath, but also to his claim of a unique relationship with God as his Father.

Think about that.

God is working right in front of them, and they cannot see it.

Perhaps that is where all of today’s readings finally come together.

Israel experienced God’s deliverance but repeatedly turned away.

Samson received an extraordinary gift but struggled with how to use it.

The Israelites in Stephen’s story experienced God’s saving work but resisted.

The man at Bethesda encountered Jesus and walked.

And some of the people who witnessed the result responded with anger.

God was working in every story.

The question was how people would respond.

And that question hasn’t disappeared.

God is still working.

God works through people.

God works through relationships.

God works through acts of compassion.

God works through unexpected opportunities.

God works through ordinary moments.

Sometimes God may even work in ways that challenge what we thought we knew.

That is why the Curious Pilgrim must remain curious.

I don’t want to become so certain that I stop listening.

I don’t want to become so attached to the way things have always been done that I cannot recognize something new.

I don’t want to look at a man who has been unable to walk for thirty-eight years, see him standing on his feet, and notice only the mat under his arm.

I want to see the grace.

I want to recognize the healing.

I want to notice what God is doing.

Perhaps today’s question is:

Am I open enough to recognize God’s work when it appears in a way I wasn’t expecting?

The pilgrimage requires open eyes.

An open mind.

An open heart.

And the humility to admit that God may sometimes surprise us.

Because despite our failures, our wrong turns, our resistance, and our inability to see the whole picture—