“And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God
My husband recently told me about a time when he was following a car with the license plate: NWULME. He spent a large part of his commute trying to figure out what it said.
“It’s like our walk with God,” he said. “We spend so much of our time trying to figure things out and make sense of whatever’s happening; we focus so much of our energy on figuring out the why and how and when, but it rarely makes sense.”
As he spoke, my mind drifted to a similar lesson I’d been learning. In Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, Joanna Weaver refers to God as the Great Grammarian; she cautions the reader not to put a period where God puts a comma, and not to put a comma where God puts a period. I found myself wondering, how do I know which is which? Maybe something that feels like a comma is really a period, or vice versa. Like having more children. Is this a comma, or a period? Everything in me wants this to be a comma, but maybe it’s not. How do I know?
And then my husband concluded his story. After trying to figure out what the license plate said to no avail, he inched his car as close to the other vehicle as he could possibly get. He saw then, what he hadn’t seen before. The license plate did not say NWULME, it said NWUCME or “Now you see me.”
“We have to get close to God,” he said, “and focus on Him. That’s what matters. Do we really see Him? Are we close enough? Everything falls into place when we are.”
He’s so right. I so often come to God with my own agenda, desiring Him to put His stamp of approval or even *gulp* His stamp of rejection on whatever it is that I want, on my plan. But how often do I come to Him empty-handed, without a plan at all? How often do I sit at His feet and just seek to know Him? How often do I open up my heart so that He can fill it, rather than hand it to Him already full of distractions that crowd out any truth He wants to speak?
After three years of coming to Him with my desire for more children (no, to be honest, two years—the first year was all me just waiting for it to happen, assuming it would because my plan was good, right?), I’ve finally learned, or am learning, I’ve been seeking the wrong thing. If God is the Great Grammarian, it’s not my job to figure out where there needs to be a comma or a period; it’s His. My job, or my privilege, is to get to know Him. And what a stress-free job that is. No more figuring out the why and the what and the when, just the Who. It’s a pursuit that fills my heart with love and peace and truth. I can rest in the knowledge of His goodness and His love. Anything He has is better than anything I can even conceive of wanting. And, in the beautiful way that only God can orchestrate, I find that as I seek His face and come to Him open and ready to hear His calling, the why and the what and the when become increasingly clear and often so much better than anything I could have ever asked or imagined.
“Now you see Me,” God says, then He opens the passenger door and smiles, “Hop in, let’s go for a ride.” That’s an invitation I don’t want to miss.
“I am the Lord your God…Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” ~Psalm 81:10
“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” ~Jeremiah 33:3
“Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.” ~Jeremiah 29:12-13
“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think…” ~Ephesians 3:20
