Haha…I love how God’s sense of humor and sense of irony can be seen throughout our lives and yet how all this can be paired with teaching (sometimes) hard lessons to His children.
Yesterday, I was asked the question: “What do you think is the most important lesson you’ve learned in college?” I immediately chuckled and began to rack my brain for one of the many things the Lord has taught me over the past 3 years. Thankfully, the question was narrowed to the time frame of the last 6 months. That made my thinking a whole lot easier…and then I realized that the thing I came up with was something I had been learning all of college.
Trusting in the Lord. That’s what the Lord has been continually refining in me recently. Trusting in His timing, trusting in His promises, trusting in His perfect will, trusting that He has His best in mind for me, trusting that He will guide and direct me as I strive to be faithful and obedient. I went on to explain to the questioner how I had said at one point during my sophomore year of college, “There is no place that I would rather be than at a point in my life where I need to be completely dependent upon God for strength and guidance.” Looking back, I do believe that I was sincere and confident in saying that…only, now I’m not so sure I would have said it with quite as much confidence as I did if I had known that the Lord would have put that statement to the test as much as He has. But knowing what I know now and seeing how the Lord has grown me and strengthened my faith and confidence in Him, I would not revoke that statement in the least! I just think I would just say it a little more humbly. =P
The ironic and slightly humorous thing about the whole situation is that after talking about learning that lesson a lot in the last 6 months, it seemed that the Lord wanted to test me again by presenting another situation to trust Him completely in. It was as if He was saying to me, “Yeah, you remember what you were talking about yesterday? Well, I was reminding you of that lesson and, simultaneously, reminding you of My faithfulness in all of those situations so that I could give you another occasion to trust Me completely and another occasion to place your faith in Me.” *Sigh* I really do agree with the statement: “People are like sheep and sheep are dumb.” One would think I would have learned this lesson of trust by now but it is so easy for me to “panic” in a situation of uncertainty and forget to take it straight to the Lord in prayer. I’m just thankful that the Lord is patient and gracious with His children and that He does not give up on them!! =] (And He has been very gracious to show me that I have grown a lot over the years!)
All in all, I know the Lord has a purpose for teaching me this much-needed lesson. In the mean time I need to abide by Psalm 37:5, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act.” In committing my way to Him, I need to be obedient and faithful to not only trust Him, but to be actively diligent in the meantime to commit myself to attend to the tasks that He has for me each day. I had a friend who gave me a good piece of advice; she said, “Instead of just standing around wringing our hands until they are chapped, we should use our hands to serve God and to serve others.” I thought that was pretty profound. =P Instead of worrying, I can think on true things and instead concentrate my efforts of worry and wondering on dealing with the people and tasks that are before me. I would say that is a much better use of my time and thoughts than focusing on myself! =]
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