“God is more powerful than my stupid”

My husband’s brothers and their childhood friends are an interesting lot.  Nice guys, really, but growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, they made their mark, and thankfully were also prevented from doing so a time or two.

One of the (many) stories that has passed into family lore has to do with Bob’s brother and a friend who were caught as they were trying to set fire to some old newspapers in an alley within a neighbor’s garage.  For “some reason” (thank God for guardian angels), the papers wouldn’t light, giving time for the yet-not-too-mature frontal lobe to kick in and say “STUPID IDEA!!”

 God, in His wisdom, gave me girls.

 So I would like to pause in the midst of my life to give thanks:

• …that I wasn’t asked to prom when I was a senior in high school,
• …that I didn’t become a recording artist back in the 70’s,
• …that we didn’t have a lot of money when we first started out with our young family,
• …that Bob’s professional circumstances pushed us back into grad school (married student housing with three kids for six years),

 And the list could go on.  And on. 

In fact, there are most likely many more things that didn’t happen to me because of my Father’s intervention of which I’m not even half aware.  I’ve come to a place in my life where I can say, in many circumstances, I really DON’T know what the best next-step is, that when I don’t get my “druthers” it’s very possibly a very (v-e-r-y) good thing, and that even the situations that happen in my life causing me discomfort somehow, someway, at some point in time, are going to fit into God’s overall design.  His frontal lobe is much bigger than mine.

And I’ll even go a step further!  Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Pastor Lawrence Wilson—“God is more powerful than my stupid.”  I just love that.  And I think King David would agree—

 ^“ I was so foolish and ignorant—
I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.”

 Yep.  That sounds familiar.  But here’s the best part—

 “Yet I still belong to you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
leading me to a glorious destiny.”

Being grateful for what I didn’t get to do, even seeing it as part of God’s gracious intervention, is just as important as being thankful for I what I have, and what He’s has planned in the future.  I’ll do my due diligence in seeking out the next step (I tend to be a maker of lists, and all that), but at the same time will choose to trust the unmarked, back alley ways to His most capable hands.

Including, but not limited to, trying to light papers that “for some reason” don’t burn.

Psalm 73:22-24  Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.