Not Anticipated.

I came with the sunrise.

Why I am still shocked by occurrences like this in my life is beyond me.
Surely I should be used to it by now.

Nope.

Would you believe me if I told you I was in Colorado right now?

Yeah, I don’t know how I get to these places either.

Meaning, 48 hours ago I had no plans to be in Colorado right now.

Please also note that I don’t live in Colorado. I live a few states away.

Yeah.
So this is more than a hop and skip. There are definitely jumps and leaps in addition to the hops and skips.

God is so funny, do you know that? And sure, sometimes his humor can catch us off guard and make us say, “Are you serious?” to which, I can only imagine he would say, “Totally serious,” because typically his humor shows up in how he changes our plans or changes our desires or makes us realize that we weren’t actually so right all along like we thought.

Which can sometimes, if we are holding tightly to our plans, desires, or those things we “know” we are right about, not seem so funny.

Other times, however, it’s funny.

Like right now, if I think about. For here I sit, in Colorado, typing away, still not entirely convinced that I am actually here.

It was a good reason why I came. I need to be here, I needed to come. No doubt about it.

I just didn’t see it coming.

This, too, is also a part of God’s humor, I think. He loves surprises. And again, I can get bent out of shape about those if I refused to let go of how I thought my life needed to be run. If I couldn’t relinquish my plans. If I couldn’t learn to laugh at how he does things, if I didn’t learn to appreciate his humor.

If I didn’t actually trust.

But I will be honest. Sometimes I don’t want to trust, I don’t want to enjoy his surprises, I want my plans to go the way I want them to.

OH if only God would cooperate!

WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I SAYING?!?!

 God? Cooperate? Why do I think he should cooperate?

I guess it is pretty telling of the condition of my heart some days, feeling like I own my life and junk.

So maybe his surprises are so I can relax a bit and remember the absolute truth of THIS IS NOT MY LIFE.

I didn’t start me. I won’t end me. I didn’t design the middle.
Why do I think I should have so much say over the matter?

I suppose because my life is very personal to me; that’s why I think he should listen to my advice. For surely I know how to run my personal affairs….

Sadly, though, the older I get the more I am beginning to really think that I don’t actually know how to run my personal affairs. For, in those rare times that something does happen just the way I want it to (this situation has maybe happened twice), I soon come to realize that it isn’t as great as I thought it was going to be.

And maybe we should have done what he wanted in the first place, and maybe I shouldn’t have put up so much FUSS…..

You know, all of this stuff about my life, his plans, his humor, surprises, and me being in Colorado on Tuesday when I had no plans to be here on Sunday, it comes down to a matter of security, doesn’t it?

And me confronting the issue of where in fact my security comes from.

Does it come from my life? My personal space, time, affairs, plans, desires, ambitions, successes, and even security in the failures because they “were mine”?

Or does it come from him? And him being who he is in all the million little ways I maybe never anticipated, typically don’t appreciate (when was the last time you thought about that? How there are parts of God we don’t appreciate? Yikes. We really are terrible creatures, aren’t we?), or more often than not am confused by?
But in the middle of me being confused or….surprised….or just not knowing what the heck he is going to do with all of this (but he will do something with all of this, Wolfies, he will! I am banking on it!), comes the only thing that really is strong enough for me to be secure in:

His goodness.

In my life I have found it’s the only thing that makes sense of all of this.

All the surprises. All the changed plans. All the characteristics of him that throw me for a loop.

I have to come back and rest and find security in the overwhelming fact that, as the Psalmist says, “God is good; and what he does is good.” (Psalm 119:68)

Period. No questions. With him there are no games (Praise the Lord).

He is just GOOD.

See, nothing else really makes me feel secure. My plans don’t. Definitely not my efforts, my ambition, my self-motivation, my creativity, my thoughts of how it all should go.

Those don’t make me feel safe. They don’t make me sleep in peace at the end of each day.

But Goodness? And the goodness of a God that’s big enough to handle it all, create it all, move it all to where he likes it?

That’s where my hope is. That’s where it has to be. Nothing else comforts me. Nothing else makes sense of why I am….surprisingly….in Colorado; nothing else but goodness. And trusting that the All Good One knows what he is doing.