A Different Approach
As Christians we usually begin our year with a season of prayer. In this time, we seek God’s face and counsel for the starting year. I would usually come with a mental list of resolutions and plans to present in my prayers. Wanting God to modify and sign them off. After all, Proverbs 16 does teach us to commit everything we do to the Lord so that our plans will succeed.
Problem was, I had been doing this for years and had reached a point of frustration. I committed my plans to God, but they did not necessarily succeed. I ended off 2018 trying to find serenity in my frustration because nothing seemed to make sense, things weren’t falling into place as I had been expecting them to.
So when this year began, I considered a different approach, I prayed differently.
Instead of coming with a list already compiled, I asked God what should be on my list. I asked him what my plans should be, what I should pursue and what direction I should take with my life. In that time of prayer, I got no answer in particular. But I refused to rush God and denied my mind to begin conceiving ideas and planning things. I nursed this one verse in my heart for the coming weeks:
“It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” Lamentations 3:26
Late February, God started communicating with me the answers to my prayer. It was in conversations I had with literal strangers. In side notes while my pastor preached. In random phone calls with people I didn’t really know. God was speaking in small whispers, and because I waited quietly, I heard him.
“The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave…” 1 Kings 19:11-13
I always thought my first publication would be a novel. I didn’t see myself anywhere near Francine Rivers but I figured I had a story to tell. For years I had been submitting manuscripts, being rejected each time. Every time it was a matter of the market I was targeting and not so much the story I was trying to tell. We spoke about this here. So I kept pushing, if the problem wasn’t me, then I had to keep pushing, right? At some point I looked into self-publishing. But I halted, it was not what I wanted. Never did I think my first publication would be an online course.
In my first attempt at my honors degree, a lecturer had suggested I look into writing articles in the future since I did so well with an assignment. I had forgotten about that until this year. God redirected my writing into something I was not only academically skilled in but something that was I was very passionate about. I was still questioning how I would go about it when He lead me to look into online course-writing.
That’s how I ended up with Knotted by Gusquare, my own online school. It’s still in its infancy, but it is such a break-through for me and I’m looking forward to what more God will guide me into concerning it.
When the year began, I was discouraged concerning my academics. I had applied for my masters and was rejected because I hadn’t yet received my final results. Crazy since there’s a thing called ‘provisional acceptance’. Anyway, I didn’t have the energy to fight so I just let it be. I spent the money I had saved up for registration and just dismissed the idea of studying further, at least for this year.
On the day I received my results (an A plus in my research report and an overall distinction for my qualification) I received a phone call from the professor I had spoken to in the previous year about supervising me for my masters. It was a real random call after her office hours just wanting to know my progress since she hadn’t heard from me (I hadn’t had the heart to tell her that I was rejected).
When I told her everything that had unfolded, she didn’t hesitate to give me the numbers of somebody I had to contact. Registrations were a week away from closing. I dragged my feet in making the call, after all I had spent the money for registering. I did it and my matter was quickly taken up for consideration. Meanwhile, the institution announced it was re-opening applications. Crazy, right? God wasn’t only doing it for me, but fixing it up for everyone else.
I received the news that I was accepted the day before registrations would close. While figuring out how to get the money, the institution announced that it was extending the closing date by a month. God bought me time.
My testimony doesn’t end here but I have so much to do I have to stop. I’m so amazed at how differently things are happening this year. It is not without challenge, but I’m so glad I rejected redundancy and chose God’s plans over my own. I encourage you to do the same.
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