Ever feel like God is working in people’s lives all around you, but not in your own? That is how I have felt for most of the past 3 years since I moved to Columbia. I am continually (even today) amazed by all of the lives that I have seen changed by God in and around our church. I sincerely consider it a tremendous privilege to witness and be a part of it all. But there is down side. The more God moves in the lives of those around me the more aware I am that he does not seem to be in my life.
How many times have you heard or read the verse that talks about God’s thoughts and actions being higher than ours? If you are like me, you know the truth of those words but they are often just salt in the wound. They make us feel like God is a judge sentencing us to community service or jail time for our “own good,” which we know hardly ever does any real good.
But thats not how it really is. God is so much more like the loving dad who disappears after dinner every night for weeks, seemingly neglecting his children, all the while building that dollhouse in the garage for his daughter or treehouse in the back yard for his son. In fact the more I look in the Bible, the times when it doesn’t seem like God is working are often the ones that he is up to something big. How did Abraham and Sarah feel when waiting for years to have children? How about the Israelites in slavery in Egypt? What were Jesus’ followers thinking while they watched the man they had put their faith in die? God sure seemed to be absent. But in fact he was the complete opposite of absent. He was putting things together on a whole different level. More than the people (or we) could ask or imagine.
So after 3 years of struggling, I am still waiting and listening. For anything. And desperately trying to trust that he really is up to something. And sometimes I even allow myself to be excited that it might be something big.
