Humility, Divine Surprises, and the Adventure of Obeying God
What’s God teaching me this season, after a move to downtown Toronto? A whole lot about the importance of humility, the blessing of divine surprises, and the adventure of obeying God and following his call to explore. Reach out with comments/questions/prayer requests @yaypodcast. God bless you, friends. May this be our most surrendered to God season yet!
Listen to You Are You podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and read the transcript below.
Hi friends! Happy October. It’s been a few months since the last episode, I mentioned some changes were going to be happening. And now two months have passed and I am settling well... into downtown Toronto.
One of my priorities has been, of course, finding community. This has involved making new friends as well as going deeper with existing friends who I'm seeing more now that we’re closer geographically. And as The Yay Project and You Are You podcast has come up, it’s been nice to share a bit about this community.
If we’re here, it’s probably because we love testimonies and storytelling. There have been some episodes that perhaps are more sermon-like, but most of these episodes are ‘girl chat’ and I’m grateful to have conversations with you.
So in this episode, I’d love to share a few things I’m learning and, as always, reach out if you’d like to chat about any aspects.
God Wants His People Humble
I love change. For sure there are times where it seems like there is too much change (the earlier episodes from this year probably showcase that a bit hah) but I would rather have change in my life than be stagnant. More on this in a second, but let me start with an example.
During the summer, I had an opportunity that was truly humbling and taught me a lot. Glad I can laugh about it now but it took a few weeks for me to fully surrender to God about this. To make a long story short, I was interviewing for a very cool Christian accelerator program and thought it was a perfect fit. I felt like I’d been learning a lot being at Velocity, a startup tech incubator, but was really craving strategic insight from Christian leaders who understood church trends and challenges. So I was excited to get the interview, and then during my interview session, there was a lag and so I heard them talking about me for a few seconds before I showed on the screen, basically saying accepting me was a “no brainer” and then… I was waitlisted.
Honestly speaking, I think this was really good for my character. I’d been coming off a few months where everything was going well. And when we’re in these kinds of seasons, it can be hard not to be prideful or entitled. We know it’s wrong… but human flesh, you know what I mean? So I’d told my advisor and a few others that I was applying… and then had to share that I was waitlisted and felt so embarrassed… probably because I’d spoken about it with the attitude of like “I’m ready and so qualified for this.”
So after a few weeks, I had an open-hearted prayer session with God and repented. And in the months since, I’ve felt him shift things and challenge my heart, and I feel stronger to pursue him and his call.
May we remember:
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:10)
All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5)
For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 14:11)
God is clear on his will for us to be humble, amen? He wants to bless us and use us for his glory, but not at the expense of our health. May we remember that surrendering to God and doing his will is our top priority.
I pray we learn to live with a humble posture and reject the temptation to be proud.
God’s Timing Can Be Fast
There were a couple of years where I felt like I was waiting, waiting, waiting on God for so many things. I’m still waiting on answers to some prayers from this period, but God has also moved and done immeasurably more can I could have asked or imagined. To me, one of the greatest privileges of being a child of God is experiencing him—in the sense that doing what he says in his Word really works.
So there’s lots of testimonies on waiting periods. It’s definitely a topic that binds us together as humans. But today I wanted to encourage us that God’s timing can also be fast. Sometimes we’re waiting years, and other times the door flings open.
After I moved to Toronto, I fully expected to spend a few months searching around before I settled on something. It was one of those “blank slate” periods where you don’t know what you don’t know, and checking out different ones seemed wise. But upon my first visit to one location, I felt the Holy Spirit whisper “Welcome home.” To which I responded “No way……..”
As we know, believing God requires faith. And the more we walk with God, the more opportunities we have to hear him and believe. But we’re still human. We never hear God perfectly 100% of the time and when we don’t it still stings. So I did think that OK! Perhaps I don’t need to search around, but still intended to… and then after two months, and attending a conference and understanding more about the heart behind leadership, I feel a lot of joy that, yes, I believe this is where God wants me. This place represents a lot of answered prayers.
If you think you’ve heard from God about something, but are still exercising your faith to really believe what he’s said, I just want to say I’m praying for you! I know it’s not easy, especially if we’ve been hurt before, believing for something that didn’t work out. But our God is faithful right? He knows how to speak to us. And since we’re his sheep and hear his voice—the Holy Spirit is in us and will help us. And sometimes, praise God, we get the answer to our prayer sooner than expected and it is sweet.
But may these experiences only strengthen our faith to trust God in all ways—whether his answer is quick or seems slow.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
Even when we don’t understand, if we submit to God, we can trust he will make our “I don’t know what’s happening, Lord” paths straight.
I pray we have soft hearts before the Lord and love to submit to him.
God Wants Us to Explore Sometimes
Free will is so interesting when it comes to our relationship with God, isn’t it? There have been seasons in my life where I just wanted God to tell me what to do. Not just in the big things but in literally everything. God is the wisest—why wouldn’t I want every aspect of my life to be guided by him? But the reality is this just isn’t how God works.
It would save us a lot of time if God just told us, e.g.
Who to marry—so we marry our first boyfriends
Which job to apply for—so we don’t waste time and energy
When to buy which stock—so we can gain the most
And so on. But God’s given us free will and he wants us to seek him, to obey him, to listen to him, and as we do, he shares more. It’s a living relationship and no day is dull!
I share this because I feel it’s something that God is teaching me right now. For a few months, I’ve been praying on and off about something. It’s an area I wholeheartedly trust God in because he’s come through before and very specifically but still… need to exercise patience. And this time around, I felt him give me a new directive: Explore. Not do this thing at this time. But explore. And as I’ve been exploring, not every road has worked out. Some have though and those “God totally orchestrated this” moments are incredible.
So if we’re wanting more divine moments, may we remember that the answer is always: love God and obey him.
I pray we choose God first, more and more.
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So it feels good to be back on the mic and sharing a bit about what God is doing in my life. He’s moving in all of our lives and I’d love to hear what he’s doing in yours too! If you’d like to share, or if you have any prayer requests, send me a DM on @yaypodcast.
Have a great day and speak with you again soon. God bless you, friends.
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