In my life, I recognize God for the blessings, goodness, and the everyday goodies in life. Usually, I see Him and am closest to Him when He pushes me. Right now, He is lovingly pushing and growing me.
In God’s eyes, we are never truly grown. He constantly wants to chip away things about us to make us more like Him. He speaks to us, has us learn through circumstances, asks us to do hard things, then even harder things, and so much more. I know God cares and loves me because He wants what’s best for me and asks that of me every day.
I’m His daughter and just like any Father, He wants to see His little girl grow and be molded into a beautiful woman one day.
The biggest thing that has been said to me or has been asked in the last month is centered around the desire to “understand” why I am coming home. To be honest, I don’t even fully understand. I can grasp at ideas or guesses, but nothing will truly explain God’s reason until He is ready to reveal it. The beautiful thing is, I don’t have to fully understand God’s calling and direction on my life to have faith and follow him.
When you look at God’s plan and what He usually reveals to his people, it doesn’t quite make sense or is something that you can fully understand, at first. Usually, when God calls you to something, it’s doesn’t seem to be the most obvious choice or sometimes even the “right choice” to the naked eye.
There are many examples of this throughout the Bible that show God doing something that seems against the norm. A prime example that has been a theme throughout my Race is 1 Kings 17 where God is guiding and telling Elijah where to go and how God will provide for him.
At the beginning of Chapter 17, God is telling Elijah to go to the brook of Cherith. The Lord says, “You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded ravens to feed you there.” (1 Kings 17:4).
This might seem like a small example of faith and trust in God, relying on some birds to bring you some food, but think of the implications. If you were told to leave where you were, go to the middle of nowhere, and someone said you would be given bread and meat by ravens, you would think them mad. Depending on creatures, who probably aren’t easy to train, to provide you with meat and bread every day to survive takes a lot of trust, but not in the ravens, in God. Elijah heard the word of the Lord and didn’t even question being fed daily by birds.
There are many examples of God saying, or sending someone to say something, that might not make a lot of sense. Telling a virgin she will have a baby, sending a horrible speaker to be the one to go to Pharaoh and negotiate freedom for God’s people, Jesus saying that He was the Son of God, and many more!
We can even see paradoxical principles in what Jesus taught, including the Sermon on the Mount… “Blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who are poor in spirit, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth…. (Matthew 5). Even in Matthew 20 with the stories of the Laborers in the Vineyard, Jesus said, “the last shall be first and the first shall be last”. Jesus spoke the opposite of what people had thought for centuries and shook the foundation of the Jewish faith. He was a radical, and it only makes sense that He would call us to do radical things.
God doesn’t reveal His plan in full. Even the most important plan that included redemption, salvation, mercy, forgiveness, and ultimate love wasn’t revealed until it was finished with Jesus going back into Heaven. And we still don’t know the full purpose and power of the Savior who will someday return and bring God’s will once and for all in a beautiful designed plan.
God didn’t reveal that plan in full explanation to anyone so I don’t expect God to reveal His plan for my life in full at any point. My job is just to follow Him in faith.
Thank you again to those who have been supporting me for over a year on this journey and are graciously and lovingly standing by me even now in all the uncertainty. God’s love is showing through your hearts and support and it leaves me speechless.
I’ll be leaving Kuala Lumpur in 4 days (Malaysia time)! If you want to support me on this journey, then I ask for your prayers. Pray that God will reveal His plan in His time, that I have patience to wait for His plan, and for my team as they continue to the Philippines on this crazy journey we call the Race.
