Odds

I like having good odds.  I like being able to stack the deck.   I am a woman who wants a plan.  I want a back-up plan.  I want a back-up plan for the back-up plan (all preferably written down on a checklist somewhere).

If I just work a littler harder my odds in life will be really good.

There's human irony in the fact that the more we "need" things to work in our favor, often the less they do:

• Looking for a job - and having 50 other people apply for the same position (some with double or triple the experience).
• Just barely making it financially - when a car dies and needs to be replaced.
• Trying to build a more stable ministry - and having a dozen transitions and issues arise at the same time.  
• Almost having a handle on tricky family dynamics - when health issues or life changes throw a monkey wrench in the plan.
• Getting amped up to start living a more healthy life - and an illness makes it barely possible to move around.  

There have been many moments in the past few years where I threw my hands up and thought "Really, Lord?  One more thing?  You have GOT to be kidding me....seriously, something's got to give...".  Just when I was certain we could not function with one more challenge, along one came.

The odds were not in our favor.

But God loves bad odds.  Otherwise, why would we ever think that the success we have is from Him?  We are much more likely to see human explanations before holy ones.

Just like Gideon, God looks at us (who really are weak), calls us "mighty warrior" (ok, isn't that in itself pretty incredible) and then tells us to send away most of our army.  And then we see what happens and make no mistake that it is His work (and that we had pretty much nothing to do with it).

Not to say that we don't need to try and plan and be responsible ("let's quit our jobs and just pray for God to drop food on us from heaven!").  But now when things are stacking up against me, as I get nervous, I also start to get excited.  Because the circumstances are being primed to be in the perfect place for God to do what He does best - something AMAZING.

God is bigger than my resume.

He's a better safety net than my savings account.

And for sure He's got enough muscle to move any wrench in the works.

I'll take those odds.

Shifting Shadows

It's 2 am and I really should be sleeping, but my mind won't stop.

Through the past few months it feels like nothing much has changed...but then also, oddly, like there is a lot going on.

There have been a series of disappointments that we've faced.  We keep trying to pursue different avenues of ministry and employment but to no avail.

But the one thought that God continues to press into my mind is that when we cannot trust what He's doing - or rather, we don't want to - we should focus on who He is.  And trust that.

I do not know what God is doing.  For whatever reason - my blindness, or His choice to keep His movements a mystery to us for the time being - I cannot see.  A lot of days, it looks like He is doing nothing.

But I know Him.  And if I trust who He is, then I know that is not true.  He is not inactive.  I have seen Him work in my life in the past, and the God who did those things has not changed.  He is not as fickle as we are, those who seem to shift under every new influence.

"God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind.  Does he speak and then not act?  Does he promise and not fulfill?"  - Numbers 23:19