“When you come looking for me, you’ll find me.” —Jeremiah 29:13 (msg)
My neighbor Dee works full-time for a ministry in town, in addition to raising three daughters and caring for her husband, who also works full-time. She is typically easygoing, low-key, measured in her words, faithful in her walk. But she’d stepped in a few recent messes at work, and now her team and her boss were miffed.
As I sat there listening to the blow-by-blow explanation of her weeks-long misery, I couldn’t help but see myself in her description. I’d said similarly stupid things, reacted in similarly dumb ways, let myself play the fool on more occasions than I care to count.
But then, the conversation shifted from shared misery to seeking God. We asked the questions that can’t help but grow us up spiritually, questions of His activity and purpose and plan: What are You after in this situation, Father? What are we supposed to learn from this pain?
We reminded each other of God’s commitment to transforming us, even if the process sometimes hurts. And we reaffirmed our belief that good always comes, even from the wreckage we unwittingly cause.
Life feels so much easier when it’s full of exclamation points— declarations and decisions and demonstrations of our having things under control. But when question marks punctuate our thoughts, it’s only then that we seek hard after God.
