Expect God to do big things, but don’t expect Him to do things your way.
I laid in a hammock staring at the sprawling Costa Rican house. I listened to my squad mates laugh, talk, sing, and play guitar. Peace and happiness and joy radiated through my confusion and sadness. I felt my heart rise as they filled the house with warmth and music. The sky hung vast above me stars twinkling in the distance. The mountains loomed behind me in majestic mystery. I watched the lights from the numerous headlamps bulb up and down as my friends checked each other for lice. I felt my doubt and internal chaos wash easily into perfect peace. I looked on with so much pride and love for the people I get to spend nine months with. I was reminded that there is no place I’d rather be. There is no place like this house in the middle of Costa Rica filled with these incredible people. As I lay there concealed away from the noise in the corner of the enclosed yard in the hammock under the probably spider infested tree, I realized God had fulfilled His promise.
Flash back to last spring. I sat across from my best friend on the outskirts of her apartment complex. She expressed how excited she was for me, explaining that I was made to do the World Race, erasing my doubts and worries with her assurance. She asked me what I hoped to see on the race. I said a bunch of things, but the thing I remember saying is that I hoped to see God move in a new way. She stopped me and said I would. As I was talking, she had felt the Lord say that I would.
I said I wanted to see God move in a new way but I had this whole vision of what that would look like. I expected crazy cool stories of God showing up, I expected Todd White like stories, I expected miracles, signs, and wonders. I had this whole image in my head of what World Race would look like.
You know how before you go somewhere you have unconsciously already mapped out what you think things will look and be like. Then you show up, and of course the vision you had isn’t at all like the reality. In normal healthy circumstances the imagined preconception will fade away into a foggy laughable image. However, sometimes, it is hard and seemingly impossible to move on from the expectation of how things should be. This was me with the World Race.
I expected the World Race to be so many things and when the reality didn’t quite match my imaginary idea of how the World Race would be I was disappointed. I couldn’t let go of my idea of how God should be showing up. I struggled writing blogs because half the time, if not most of the time, I had no idea what God was showing me. I knew he was showing me huge things but I couldn’t always wrap my head around them. I struggled seeing where God was because He wasn’t doing the things I thought he should be doing.
Yesterday, my team and I were being shown around the neighborhood. As we walked, my friend yacked away. I felt bad but I was aggravated by her chatter. I wished she would just shut up. I just wanted to enjoy my surroundings, or so I told myself. Finally I admmited to her that I didn’t really want to talk. She respected my wishes and I retreated deep into my own sulky silence. I wasn’t wondering at my surroundings, I was doing my best to retreat as far as I could into my introvert hole and shut everyone out. (Shout out to together alone time). As we meandered around I realized the last time I so adamantly didn’t want to talk to anyone, God had wanted to talk to me and wrestle with him over my troubles. So I listened, and sure enough, God had something to say. He told me that I didn’t believe he would show up miraculously. But Lord, I argued, I do believe in miracles I have seen them. You believe I can do miracles, not that I will. Thus ensued a very confusing conversation and mental debate. I felt like God was telling me to believe Him and trust that He would fulfill His promise. I didn’t understand this though. I had stopped expecting God to show up in big ways for fear of disappointment. I didn’t think I could handle being let down again. But then, as I lay in that hammock, I understood what Abba had meant. I thought that God hadn’t shown up only because He hadn’t shown up in the way expected, but He had shown up. He had moved and revealed Himself to me in a new way, just like he had promised, but I was too focused on my idea of how He should be showing up to see how He was actually revealing Himself.
God is displaying His glory right before my eyes. He is coming alive in the community of my squad. He is filling the house with peace, laughter, and music. He touches my heart and takes my burdens all over again. God is teaching me how to delight in life and pay attention to the little things. Here is God encouraging me to step out in leadership and determination, which by the way is different than control. God is in all these beautiful little details of life.
There was God pushing me to ask my roughly put together Spanish question and picking me up from my embarrassment when it only lead to confusion. There was God in the people I met in Malaysia. There was God as I ran across a half flooded feild to catch a frisbee. There was God as I handed Ket a peice of her cake. There was God as I sat for hours attempting to learn my ukelele. There was God as I spent hours covering a wall with primer that might as well have been milk. There was God as I tried desperately to mop up the rotting Turkey juice only to find ever more of it mixed in with a dead lizzard in our kitchen. There was God in all these little moments. This was the new way He wanted to show up to me, in the little things. The things that at first glance seemed to have nothing to do with God. Yet, He still wants me to believe and expect He will show up. He just might not show up in the way I expect. He asks me to wait expectantly for big things and miracles, but that shouldn’t blind me from what He is doing in the moment. So yes, you can expect God to do big things, but don’t expect Him to do things your way. Sometimes God does big things in a thousand little moments that are ultimately more valuable than one big moment could ever be, you just can’t see it when you are in the midst of it. Sometimes what seems like the smallest little thing is huge in the Kingdom of God, and what seems huge to us is small to God. I’ve found God likes to flip things around, and just when you think you’ve got it figured out, just kidding you don’t. I won’t ever have everything figured out, but that’s okay. Life would be pretty boring if I did. All I need to do is keep my eyes and my heart open to what God has for me in each and every moment, and go from there. God’s doing some pretty awesome things all the time, sometimes I just have to take a step back to realize it.
Don’t shy away from big prayers. Pray big prayers. Pray crazy prayers. Pray impossible prayers. Wait expectantly for God to answer. You will have all kinds of ideas of how God should answer you, and God will answer you, but it might not be in the way you expect or in the moment you expect Him to answer. Then again, sometimes it will. Either way, let’s celebrate God, because He is worthy and He has done, is doing, and will do awesome things.
