“The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving
toward all He has made.” Psalm
145:13
Yesterday was the Coffeehouse Mission Night that I along
with a few missionaries heading to Poland put on. First of all, I want to
say a huge THANK YOU to
everyone who baked, sang, designed posters, set up tables and chairs, let us
cut flowers from your yard, MC’d, or simply showed up. This was a group effort
and we couldn’t have pulled it off without each and every one of you.
just saying that because I was one of the hosts. 🙂 Our friend Jeff was the MC, my extremely talented brother-in-law,
Aaron, put together a band and played songs that he had written, there was a
puppet show that part of the Poland team
put on and the local gospel choir came to sing. There was also an
overabundance of desserts that friends and family had baked. There were
more people there than I expected to show up and everyone seemed to have a
really good time!
By the end of night I was feeling really good. The
donation jars were all full, people seemed really interested in both the World Race
and the group heading to Poland and I was certain that God was going to provide
us with more money than we thought we were going to raise. But this wasn’t
necessarily the case.
even close to the amount of money I thought we were going to raise. And my
excitement from the night turned to
frustration. WHY? God, I
gave you this fundraiser…I did it all in your name so why didn’t
you show up like I thought you were going to?
I have yet to doubt that God is going to provide all of the
money I need for the Race. I have felt like I need to do my part (aka put
on a fundraiser) so he has the opportunity to show up. I guess I’m the
idiot who thinks that God needs an opportunity to show up. He’s GOD. He can show
up whenever and wherever he wants to! He doesn’t need ME to
do anything. He’ll do it in is his perfect timing and in his divine
way.
I talked all of this over with my sister, Aaron, and my
friend Marnie (who is one of the people heading to Poland) and after we prayed
about it I headed to bed. I woke up this morning and started talking with
God. God, help me to stop expecting you to show up in ways I think you’re
going to show up and just show up in ways that can only be explained by you…in
ways that in no way, shape or form can give any of us the glory, just you.
When I got to work I remember that when I received my
paycheck on Friday it showed that there was no deduction for my insurance. Odd.
I sent my benefits manager an email asking her about this and she called
me to tell me somehow somebody messed up and took me off of my insurance and
that she took care of it. She then asked me about all of my travel shots
and mentioned how happy she was that our insurance covers all travel shots because
of how expensive they are. Hold up…what?! I had gotten most
of my shots, received a bill of $487, assumed my insurance (like most) didn’t
cover it and I paid it. After a quick call to my insurance company,
clearing up some sort of confusion on their part, they told me they will be
sending in a check for my shots. Which in turn means I will be reimbursed
$487!!
“Now all glory to God, who
is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely
more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus
through all generations forever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21
God provided in
a way that I didn’t expect. As my mom said, “Do you
suppose God just shakes his head at us sometimes?” I can tell you
now that I’m not done learning how to drop my expectations of God and
trusting that he is going to show up in God ways, not Jen ways. My ways
are so much more boring than God ways anyhow and who likes boring?
Let us hold tightly without
wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Hebrews 10:23
