At some point in my life I realized that I will never be able to understand the entirety of a God bigger than the universe. However, I continue to try to understand pieces of Him… to sum Him up, to define His character. What continues to awe me about my God is when He says “Yes Sarah, that’s part of who I am but did you ever consider this?” It happens for than I would like to admit. I settle into a routine and become comfortable. Then God finds a way to make me say, “wow.”
This is a story that starts in Nsoko, Swaziland while Jackie and were at our homestead.
He answers the prayers we don’t even remember praying
For two nights in a row I was having really vivid dreams. Sometimes I remember dreams but not frequently. So I went back to my journal and as it turns out, the last words I wrote on the night I started having dreams was “God, I’m too tired to journal… please speak to me through dreams and I promise to be a good steward of whatever you want to tell me.”
He speaks through dreams
One such dream was this:
I was back at the physical therapy office i worked at last year. Everything was the same. I walked in past the secretary, Susana and said hello, turned left at the end of the hall and headed into the office. When I turned in there was a girl from one of my college classes at one computer and on my right was a guy that was at a missions conference I attended last year. He was slouched in his chair kind of mindlessly clicking on the computer. One of the therapists turned to me and asked me how my Christian missions thing was last year. As I started to explain the World Race Nate sprang to life, spun around, and started asking me a ton of questions, saying that he was really interested in that kind of thing.
To be honest, I’m amazed I could even place him. I decided very last minute to go to this missions conference. I think I had met Nate a few times before (sorry if I’m missing some times, Nate!) but my only time really with him was for those 4 days of the conference. Plus, in my mind, there are no connections between Nate and physical therapy!
His timing is perfect
Normally I would just pray for Nate and move on. But since I had apparently journal promised God that I would do something with what he told me… I figured I should send an email. So being the obedient procrastinator that I am… maybe two weeks later I found Nate on the world’s greatest address book, facebook, and I sent him an email. I chose not to include the obvious interpretations but just to tell him the dream and encourage him.
Nate responded almost immediately to tell me that it was great that I emailed and that he would get back to me with the specifics. So apparently Nate and I are cut from the same procrastinating cloth… but yesterday I received this email…
Our God is this intricate
“To make a long story short, I graduated in May, and my plan was to eventually go to Seminary. I ended up coming back to Newark and living with Jeff, Zach, and Patrick. I got engaged in November, and then started a job in February. I am still working there right now. The plan was to work there for a year and a half until Lauren graduated school and then I would go to seminary. I really was feeling discontent with working there (I am a computer programmer), even if I had a good day at work. I just felt God calling me somewhere else. Some days at work I wouldn’t have anything to do so I would sit slumped at my chair playing Spider Solitaire (like how I was playing a game in your dream). On one such day I talked to my fiancé Lauren for about an hour about how I really felt God calling me to be somewhere else. I was at the job because I decided that it was the responsible thing to do being that I am getting married. So then I come home and get your email.
I think God was using this to let me know that I needed to trust him and not stick with the “practical and responsible” thing to do. I was really excited about the email, and since then I have been trying to figure out how to transition from my job to being more involved with ministry. I am working on getting a part time computer job while also being an IV staff worker for next year.” (IV=Intervasity= college campus ministry)
Wow
My God answered a prayer I journaled in my sleep, inserted Nate into a dream, reminded me to email him on the exact day he needed to hear it, and is stretching Nate to push into something new.
God is intricately involved in every detail of our lives. He defines “detail oriented” even in the lives of those of us who tend to live a little more… chaotically, to put it nicely. He cares about the details we don’t know that we should care about… and the details we don’t even know exist!
