My sister looked at me and said “You don’t seem excited,” with a look of sheer confusion. It was the day before my birthday and a dear friend, who is over 9000 miles away from me, had sent a cake. Minutes before I carried the cake into the house, I had gotten an email about a program that I had been looking forward to and praying about. Due to the pandemic, it got suspended. I could not be “excited;” I was wondering if that was the end of this thing that had preoccupied my mind for months. 

A few days before, a friend of mine called me and I was telling her about the uncanny way in which I found out about the program and how essentially, God directed me to it. The same day, my cousin got me an early birthday present and in the card she wrote to me, she unwittingly referred to something connected to the program. I saw these little elements as harbingers, signs that God was going to answer my prayers. In the midst of my disappointment, which lasted for a few days after I got that email, my spirit asked me to reflect on what my prayer request was. I realised that I never actually prayed to gain admission into the program or to complete it seamlessly; I prayed for God’s will to be done. God did His will and there I was, not fully willing to accept it. This minor occurrence taught me a major lesson about accepting God’s way, radical trust and our complicated relationship with these two concepts. 

I saw something that spoke to me the other day: “Pray first and then make plans. Don’t plan and then pray for your plan to work.” It got me thinking about how we are sometimes disappointed with God because of the outcome of certain situations, but we probably never sought God’s way in the first place. For the first time in my life, I prayed over something that I really wanted by simply asking for God’s will to prevail. It’s funny because it seemed ‘dangerous’ at first as I wondered if I was shortchanging myself by not boldly asking for what I wanted. The Bible says ask and you shall receive, no? Yet, as I mature in faith, by the grace of God, I become more convinced that the safest, boldest and most sensible thing to do, is to seek God’s will. I admit that it is more difficult. God’s path is never really straight and so believing gets hard because we can never really tell where it would lead to.

Like you, I have never really known where God is taking me at a given point in time, but when I get to the destination, it is always better than I could have imagined or asked for. Over time, I have discovered that God’s way has been and will always be better. Finally, I’ve also learnt that God has a much better understanding of this life and this world than I do. My mum always says “God knows the end from the beginning.” God also knows me better than I know myself. I might think that I  desire something or want to be somewhere but if God who sees and knows all says “this is not good for you,” I should believe that. Radical trust. I am learning what this means and trying hard to put it into practice daily. I hope you do too. 

PRAYER REQUEST 

Today we’re praying for courage for anyone trying to overcome a fear and/or start something new. As Hillsong Y&F says in “To My Knees,” May ‘grace dissolve every fear’ in them and may they know that God is with them every step of the way. 

P.S:

~I saw this post on Insta the other day and I think you should read it!

~Listen to “Your Will, Your Way,” by Bryan and Katie Torwalt from Playlist 46, “Waiting Room.” 

~Follow: @mycandleculture to know when a new post is up. Thank you for reading!