Sitting in the folding wooden chair a few weeks back, halfway listening & internally rolling my eyes as the genuine & I’m sure well intentioned pastor told a story about a guy asking for a sign from God so he would know what to do. It was something about if someone was wearing a red shirt then we would now and then a bus full of people all wearing red pulled up. You know the kind of story.
My attitude was less than stellar. I feel a little prickly these days sitting in church and I still haven't gotten to the bottom of it but I’m doing some work.
But you know, I get it. I get why people ask God for a sign, for him to make it clear. Sometimes you just don’t know and it makes you crazy.
I sent an email today and said yes to something that I’m not entirely sure how it’s going to work out.
That’s kind of the theme in our lives these days; not entirely sure how things will work out. If we’re being honest, we don't have a clue how they’ll work out.
But I feel it. I cringe even typing that.
Being a left brained, logical, detail oriented, planner, problem solving get-shit-done kind person, feeling something makes me so uneasy.
Because how do you really know? You don’t and you can’t.
It’s because it comes from that place deep in your soul that you don’t even have words for, that limbic place in your brain that isn’t capable of forming words because it feels instead figuring things out.
It’s that place where the tears came from when I called my husband last week and told him that I didn’t know how it was supposed to work and the money didn’t sense but I knew it was time. I’ve been working towards and dreaming of writing a book and the time for that work is now. Not when the money makes sense, not when we can get it all planned out, but now.
And my sweet and wise husband always has the precise reminder this wild hearted woman needs.
‘Wake up and do the work that is set before you today. What you need for today will be sufficient. You just do that work set before you.’
And indeed it is sufficient.
Daily bread.
Bread for today. Provision for today.
Not a full harvest to sustain us months from now. But bread for today and that is enough.
I grasp and grip tightly and control.
But the bread is still no more and yet still no less.
It’s sufficient without my striving and still sufficient without my faith.
Signs are nice. And who wouldn't want it written on the wall?
To be able to see that pathway and know the ‘how.’
But he gives us this day, our daily bread.
And the daily bread is enough.
So we take the bread and break it. Giving thanks for his provision, for his sufficiency.
Provisions and sufficiency rarely come in the form a check with lots of zeros at the end.
They come in quiet moments and gentle whispers.
They come in utility bills that are less because of the milder winter, text messages from friends who tell you they believe in you, and that feeling deep in your gut that ‘it’s going to be ok.’
Leaning in and trusting rather than asking for a sign or manhandling the circumstance into my perceived control, is what I’m learning to do these days .
Sitting still makes me antsy; peace has never been something I will sit still long enough to feel.
But there’s a peace that’s transcending and it’s weird.
Weird because nothing about this season should feel peaceful. But that’s what peace feels like I’m coming to learn.
Peace with the unknown of what even next month will hold, peace that the money will be there when it’s time, peace that if this is indeed the life and work he has called us to then he will see it through.