Light for August

However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,

what no ear has heard,

and what no human mind has conceived”-

the things God has prepared for those who love him-

~1 Corinthians 2:9

I love how the Lord speaks His truth into my heart at just the right moment and how these moments remind me that He is ever present in my life. When I decided a year ago to reflect on a different verse every month I could not have imagined what August would look like in 2020 or how upside down I would feel.

I spent most of the summer trying to ignore the worries and anxieties that the upcoming school year posed but as July passed, rather quickly I might add, that task became more difficult. In my professional life, I’m an over-planner who likes to have a firm grasp on what tomorrow will hold and that’s just not possible in education right now. We aren’t just walking into the unknown, it’s a very FLUID unknown. Rules are changing, recommendations seem impossible and tomorrow is about as clear as the mighty Mississippi.

It’s easy for your mind to spiral if you let Satan get a hold of all your fears because he knows just which buttons to push and when to push them. I’ve spent the last two months trying to “help” the Lord to best work everything out and coming up empty which didn’t stop me from spending more time trying to figure it out again later because maybe then a stroke of genius would come to mind. It didn’t! So, as I sat down to reflect on my August verse, I had to giggle a little at how the Lord spoke into my current spiral. It was the same message He’s been trying to get through my thick skull for the last few years…It’s not up to me to figure everything out and just because I don’t know the plan, doesn’t mean there isn’t one.

This verse in 1 Corinthians is referencing back to Isaiah 64:4 and speaks of God’s redemptive plan after a huge crisis moment for His people but I think it can speak to us in our uncertainties as well. The good Lord is not limited with our finite minds and His answers don’t have to seem logical. The Bible chronicles how some of the Lord’s best answers came in the unexpected and I know in my life that has definitely been true. In fact, if you look at the verse above in Isaiah, it says “…you did awesome things that we did not expect” and yet here I sit worrying about the Lord’s plan for 2020 because I don’t understand it. Praise God that He does unexpected things beyond our vision because let me tell you… the options I’ve worked out aren’t great!

So, as we head into this new adventure I’m going to do my best to wait patiently AND expectantly for all the Lord has planned. I will rest in the knowledge that when I feel overwhelmed, He is in complete control. When I feel unprepared, His plan is already in place and when I feel like a failure, He has the ultimate victory! (John 16:33)