This has been a week of twists and
turns. What I set out to do each day
rarely matched the God-given agenda I actually experienced and I’m loving
it. It has taken me 50 years to accept
the unexpected as an opportunity to remember how much I need God!
The unexpected makes me
uncomfortable, sometimes hungry, most of the time spending more money than I
had planned, always mysterious and often unexplained in the end. I’ve learned to accept the value of the
experience for what it is. It is a
privilege to go somewhere, meet someone or add some skill I never knew about
before.
Perhaps it was the overwhelming
experience of losing my husband suddenly that puts all the other unexpected
experiences in context for me. All I
know is that something has changed in the center of my soul as I have relaxed
rather than react when everything goes haywire, especially the big things.
I just wish I could be that way when
people stay in the left lane while driving on the interstate and don’t move
over as the signs clearly state (Texans are the worst!). I would invite the Holy Spirit to bring
relaxation rather than ranting to that experience for me—I’m not there
yet.
You have to be ready for the
unexpected to get the most benefit. For
instance when the guy brought me out my taco and asked me about whether I
thought he should follow his dreams, I was expecting him to try to sell me
something. I left realizing that,
although I encouraged him to follow his dreams, I didn’t see the unexpected
question as an opportunity to share about how my faith and dreams
interweave. It was the perfect set up,
and I missed it because I was expecting something else.
God is the God of the unexpected. For instance, He told Abraham when he was 75
and his wife 65 that they would become parents.
If I were Abraham, I would be expecting to have a child by 76; but what
we know God meant by that was that he would have a child at 100 by a 90 year
old wife. Now that was totally
unexpected.
The best way to live this life is to
think about what you might do with each hour of your day and then leave room
for the way God shows you to do it.
Sometimes I just do the next thing in front of me and pray that I won’t
miss what God is calling me to do.
Isaiah 55:9 says: As the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts
than your thoughts. God doesn’t choose the way we choose to accomplish His
work. He knows us. He knows we will get lost along the way and
fulfill our sinful tendency to glorify ourselves. He shows us how to do it in a way that only
He receives the glory. It’s taken many
lessons to teach me that following His way is always hard, sacrificial, brings
out more of His goodness in me than I ever thought could be in me, and is so
fun!
I love the
unexpected. I want to live my life open
to the unexpected challenges I will face today and have a private loving
connection to God while I’m figuring out what to do next.
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