For the past year now I’ve been telling myself, and others, how great it is to let God surprise you.
Just the other day I was on the phone with a friend who had some bad news to share. Initially I thought the phone call would be one where I’d be picking little pieces of their heart off the floor doing my best to help them put it back together. I was almost completely wrong, and somehow with God’s grace there was immense peace, clarity, and joy that this ‘bad’ news allowed to blossom. It’s true that at certain times when we’re in the thick of things and caught up in what’s going on it can be easy to forget that God is working in the background – He is constantly working in our favour.
The moments when we forget who He is are usually the moments when He catches us off guard. I know that I often unknowingly put limits on Him, which in turn puts limits on what is possible – for myself, my service, my efforts, my choices, etc. As an events planner at work it’s literally my job to plan (something I love to do in general), but in everyday life there comes a time when you have to trust that you’ve done your part. You’ve planned as much as you could, made concrete steps to carry out those plans, but then let the Lord surprise you with His own plans and His way of how things will unfold. It’s not always clear in the beginning, but usually with time we see just how many times His surprises have been in our favour out of pure and unconditional love for us.