“Our God
works in mysterious ways.”
It’s a
phrase that’s been said all throughout history. How true of a statement it is…
Too often we try to understand His ways. But He says Himself that “his ways are
not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts.” Plus, if we could understand God,
He wouldn’t be able to inspire awe. And I love standing in awe of Him.
God has
taught me more lessons in the last year than I could possibly count. But I’m
only going to talk about one. I’ve mentioned it in another blog a few months ago,
but God has taken me even deeper into this truth.
In the
past, I was always afraid to expect things. To me, if I didn’t have
expectations, there was no way I could be let down. And ironically, I was most
afraid to expect anything from God. But over and over, time after time, He’s
said to me, “Come expecting, Eryn.” So,
whenever I worked up enough courage to come expecting, God would do one of two
things: He’d either blow my expectations out of the water, or He wouldn’t meet
them in the way I wanted Him to. And unfortunately, I would tend to focus on the
times He didn’t show up or act in the way I expected Him to, which led to a
lack of trust. I was kind of a Debbie-Downer. 😉 But recently, the words that have
been constantly spoken to me have finally sunk in. It took a lot of pain, a lot
of fighting and praying, but it’s finally hit me. I will always come expecting
God to do something amazing. But I’m not going to have specific expectations.
He’s going to show up, and that’s all there is to it. He’s going to move, He’s
going to act, He’s going to speak. It just won’t always be in the way we want
Him to, and we have to be okay with that.
Last
Sunday, we met a man named Biel-pronounced Bill-at the church service we
attended. He is a Sudanese refugee who came to Australia eight years ago with
his wife and six kids to escape the wars that were going on in Sudan. He
invited a few of us over to his house to talk. We went over there and talked
with him and met his family. Ultimately, we agreed to attend and help his
church service. We spoke with the rest of the team, and started getting really
excited, imagining a church full of Sudanese refugees and getting to lead
worship and give a sermon. We had expectations. We went there today and walked
into a church with about twenty people, mostly men. We led in two songs of
worship, and sat down the rest of the time. Not what we expected. Does that
mean that God didn’t show up? We were able to bless them with our presence, and
encourage them with our faith and our mission. Did God move? You bet.
Later, I
was in the meeting room here at the YWAM base, and there’s a piano, a drumset,
a guitar, a conga drum, and an electric guitar. First, there was just one
person playing the piano beautifully, which is what brought me up there. It
makes my spirit soar to listen to the piano. Then, someone came over and
started banging the conga drum. Next, someone else came and picked up the electric
guitar. Finally, someone sat down at the drumset. And what started out as someone
screwing around on the piano turned into a fullout jam session, with me and
another one of them randomly singing. The Spirit fell and it was the most beautiful
moment-the sound of Heaven. 🙂 I hadn’t gone into that with
much expectations except to listen to some pretty music. Did God show up? Did
He ever! Another lesson to always come expecting.
“Our God
works in mysterious ways.” Yes, yes He does. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
