Irony has a funny way of wiggling its little self into our lives, but we usually do not see it until after the fact. As my summer of support raising begins to come to an end, I am giggling in unbelief at all of the ironies unfolding…
Twelve weeks of support raising. If you asked me a year ago if I thought I would spend the summer after graduation asking people to give me money to share the Good News for two years I would laugh in your face. Not because I didn’t want to go, but because the thought of support raising was the absolute farthest thing from my mind. I was completely avoiding anything of that nature. And even when I did consider it, I thought it would be a couple hundred bucks where I could send out a few quick letters to relatives and make it happen. HAH far from it. But, the irony isn’t just in the fact that what I said I would never do came to be, but more in how much I learned through what I was so dreading! I have come to learn that God uses the things that we are so hell bent on not happening, to break us. Not because he wants to hurt us, or see us struggle. But because he wants to see us triumph in Him! God wants to shape us more and more into His image. And He cannot do that, or I should say, we won’t allow him to do that in the midst of our own comfort.
Twelve weeks provision. Something I have always prayed for is for God to by my provider, “Lord, I want to live under your provision.” It sounds pretty right? Even though this was, and still is a true prayer of mine, I did not understand the intensity of my prayer request. This past Sunday was filled with irony when I heard these simple words from a friend, “sometime when you want to know God as a healer, you or someone you love has to be in need of healing… when you want to know God as a provider, you have to be put in a place where you are in need of provision.” OH THE IRONY! How I have been put in a pace where I am in need of provision. And it is beautiful! I have seen and continue to see the beautiful and miraculous ways God has provided for me.
Twelve weeks of trust. Have you ever played the trust fall game? You know, the one where you randomly fall backwards onto someone and trust them to catch you. As you’re about to fall you yell trust fall! But the game only works if you really trust them. If you get freaked out and begin to flail, try to turn around or stick your foot back to catch yourself, you could end up getting hurt worse than if you would have just fallen. I kind of feel like I have continuously been play the trust fall game with God. Time and time again this summer I have yelled trust fall to God! I have told God, okay! I am surrendering, this is all you. And then I go and stick my dang foot out! But I have learned (through trial and error) that when I stop trying so hard, and just trust God to work in and through people, it works out SO much better. I have learned that His way is always better than my way, even when it might not seem like it. It have learned to trust and to praise God through the good and the bad!
But that’s the irony in life. It takes our weakness to see God’s strength. It takes our inadequacy to see God’s provision. And it takes our shortcomings to learn to trust in God. I hope that whatever stage of life you are in, we can all learn to see irony as a beautiful mechanism in which God’s Majesty prevails.