If you’ve been near me in the past three years you’ve probably seen the Lock Screen of my phone. It’s pink, and it says “GOD is good”. This simple truth is something that I can lose sight of, but for the most part I grasp onto pretty well.
Before coming onto the race I thought I grasped onto the concept that God is faithful too, turns out I hadn’t.
I got to the conundrum of God’s faithfulness. It feels like everything the Lord has brought up in my life on the race hasn’t been solved, it’s just snowballed into the next thing (good or hard) that He would bring up. Add to that, that He gave me some very specific promises that just didn’t come to pass, or the opposite came to pass and I was left feeling confused, abandoned, and a little hurt truthfully.
It seemed to me that it would’ve been way kinder for Him to have just not given me any promises, or to have given them in incredibly vague ways so they would always appear to come true.
And then I got Covid (sorta) and things escalated. 
A little backstory on that, while in Ecuador a good amount of our squad got Covid. We were almost going to have to split up and some people wouldn’t have gotten to Africa on the same time frame, but by an actual miracle of the Lord we all tested negative when the time came and had a few hours to pack our bags and get to the airport. I didn’t have Covid during this time and was praying about how much the Lord has always known I’ve wanted to go to Africa (specifically to the bush of Africa) and how it’d be really great if I could get there. He told me not to worry and it’d all be ok.
Flash forward a month, and we are about to leave for Lesotho, which I really wanted to go to cause the ministry there is a whole other vibe. Long skirts, no electricity, drop toilets, nearest grocer is an hour and a half away, scenery that looks like a painting, you know, basically a whole dream. As I was packing, I was informed that I had tested positive for Covid that morning and boy did I have some questions for the good Lord above. The way it worked out, it was a strong option that if I and another one of my squad mates who also was positive, didn’t test negative, we might not get to go to Lesotho at all.
We spent one night sleeping in a quarantine room (honestly nice going from a room with 10 people in it to a room with 2) and we debated on whether or not to test the next day. Since there were two of us the likelihood of a false positive was lower and it would’ve made more sense to wait and not test the next day. We decided to test the next day anyway cause we figured we had nothing to lose by doing it. 
We quarantined that day while we waited for the results. Played the piano, watched the time go by, walked in circles, you know, all the quarantine things. As I was walking round and round, I was talking with God about disappointment and faithfulness. Why had He made me these promises? Why did it look like another one wouldn’t come true? What was the deal?
He said I was very attached to the “how” of how things happen. He had always told me what would happen, and I had filled in the blank with “how” I thought it would happen. He said the what + the how is a formula, not trust. When He gives me the what and not the how, then I have to actually trust in Him and that His character is good.
I felt better, went and sat and watched the clock, decided that if He said His word wouldn’t return void then no matter how it happened, it wouldn’t return void.
Then I heard screaming.
My squad mate ran into our room shouting that somehow we were negative. We ran all the way to the house(I don’t run so that was big) and told the other girls. Pack your bags, we all were going to Lesotho!
It was a really great day and the Lord kept saying, “look, see? I told you it would come true.”
Moral of the story, the Lord delights when we trust in Him. If we have all the details, we don’t have to trust in Him, we can slide by trusting in the formula. And time and time again He will prove His faithfulness to you, cause He’s a God of action not just words. Ask Him this week to show you His faithfulness and text me the stories, I’d love to hear them!!
Love it!! You experienced the difference of rules/religion vs. being in relationship. God is faithful and His word doesn’t return void. I’m looking forward to texting to a faithful story 🙂
I love that you have one more piece of evidence that God is faithful and that you can trust Him, and HE’s in charge of the ‘how’ and ‘when’ departments. I’m praying for a house on the lake…don’t know which lake, where, when or how it’s going to happen, but I do trust that it WILL someday…even if it isn’t till I’m fully in the kingdom. That gives me the ability to anticipate good things for the future.
When we went to the airport to leave Rwanda, we didn’t have our COVID test results. We were told to wait at an outdoor bar..it was iffy if they’d be back in time. Twice we went to the person checking COVID results and twice they called to see if the results were in. No, they weren’t. As the announcement came on for final call for checking in for our flight, the results came in at that moment and we were able to leave on our scheduled flight. And during the whole wait we were at peace, trusting that God would come through or that we would have a purpose for being delayed. God IS Good!