Lessons from a Life of Faith
Most of us want to understand what God is doing in our lives right now. But more often than not, He only gives us one piece of the puzzle at a time. This is the story of how one woman’s ordinary life became an extraordinary testimony of God’s provision, timing, and purpose.
Why Doesn’t God Show Us the Whole Picture?
God rarely shows us the full plan. He hands us one small piece, and sometimes we don’t get the next piece for twenty years. Then one day we look back and it all makes sense. That door that closed. That painful season. That person who came into our life for just a short time.
What looks like an interruption or a dead end often turns out to be the very thing God uses to redirect us. A simple conversation, a stranger, a job, a tragedy, a small act of kindness. These moments may seem insignificant when they happen, but God knows exactly what they mean.
He sees the whole picture when we can only see what is right in front of our face.
How God Prepares Us Years Before We Realize It
“Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” – Isaiah 6:8
God prepares us sometimes years in advance for a job He has in mind for us. The lessons He teaches us in one season become the tools we need in the next.
A grandmother who took her granddaughter to church before she ever started school planted a seed that would shape an entire life. The Bible recognizes this kind of influence. Timothy’s grandmother Lois is mentioned specifically in 2 Timothy 1:5 as someone whose faith shaped the next generation.
Growing up on a farm meant long, hard hours in extreme heat and cold. At fourteen, a Father handed His daughter a ledger and asked her to track every cow, every cost, every sale. It seemed like just a chore. Years later, that same skill would be used to manage tractor trailers full of food for thousands of disaster victims.
What Does God’s Provision Look Like in Real Life?
God’s provision rarely looks the way we expect it to. It often comes through people.
- A classmate who gave a poor farm girl clothes to wear to school.
- A bus driver who refused to let children wade through floodwaters, unknowingly saving their lives.
- A stranger who walked into a bank and asked for someone by first name, leading to a job with no prior experience or college degree.
- A co-worker who called at exactly the right moment when someone was sitting on a bed with a gun, ready to end her life.
None of these people may have known the full weight of what they were doing. But God did.
What Happens When We Go Through Seasons of Depression and Hopelessness?
As Christians, we go through winters of life. A bad medical diagnosis. The death of a loved one. Depression. Financial problems. Family crisis. These seasons can make us believe there is no hope, that we will be stuck in this place forever, and that God has forgotten us.
But God is always at work, even in those moments. Sometimes He sends a pastor with an invitation. Sometimes He sends a co-worker with a phone call. Sometimes He sends a stranger who took a wrong turn and felt compelled to walk through a door he did not understand.
A man once walked into a bank office and said he did not know why he was there. He had taken a wrong turn, seen a sign, driven past, but felt God telling Him to go back. He walked in and ministered to someone who desperately needed it that day. God’s timing is always perfect, even when it looks like an accident.
What Does It Mean to Say Yes to God?
Saying yes to God does not always mean going somewhere dramatic. But sometimes it does.
After Hurricane Katrina, a woman felt a strong pull to go feed people. She signed up for disaster relief training. Two hundred people showed up and were told they would not be needed. A couple of weeks later, she prayed and asked God to use her. Thirty minutes after that prayer, her phone rang. Could she leave the next day for Texas? Hurricane Rita had not yet made landfall. She would be driving into a Category 5 hurricane.
The lesson: be careful what you pray for, and always be prepared.
How Does God Provide When Resources Run Out?
In Texas, the team ran out of breakfast food. They had four cases of gravy when they needed ten to feed two thousand people. A pastor told them to pray about it. They prayed, then started cooking with what they had.
When they pulled from the trailer, the gravy turned out to be powder instead of premix. It stretched further than expected. They fed two thousand people and had gravy left over.
“We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Ephesians 2:10
A newborn baby outfit was donated to a tractor trailer before the team left for Texas. When they arrived, a baby was born at the center. Diapers were desperately needed with no stores open and no electricity in the town. The team unloaded a trailer full of diapers. The woman overseeing the center said it felt like God laughed and said, so how many diapers did you need?
Why Our Perspective Changes Everything
In the middle of disaster, a little girl was asked what she thought about the flood. She said she had a lot of fun. First she got to ride in a helicopter, then a boat, then she went to a place with lots of kids to play with, and then they stayed in a hotel.
The lesson: life is about perspective.
The hardest moments in life can look completely different depending on where we are standing. God does not always remove the flood. But He sends boats. He sends helicopters. He sends people.
Are You Recognizing the Boats God Is Sending You?
There is an old story about a man whose house was flooding. A boat came by and offered to take him to safety. He refused, saying God would save Him. Another boat came. He refused again. A helicopter came. He refused. He drowned. When he got to heaven, he asked God why He had not saved Him. God said, I sent two boats and a helicopter.
God is always working. The question is whether we are paying attention to how He is working.
He may lead us across the globe or across the street. Our role is to trust His plan and say yes, prayerfully but without hesitation.
You Do Not Have to Do Something Great. You Just Have to Live for Him.
Most of us want to make a significant mark somewhere in our lifetime. It is comforting to believe that our routine, ordinary lives are just preparation for some really big assignment waiting around the corner. But sometimes, in a moment of quietness, God whispers: this is it. What you are doing right now is what you were called for.
Your purpose might be feeding thousands of disaster victims. Or it might be cleaning bathrooms. It might be crocheting Easter baskets for homeless children. It might be making a phone call at exactly the right moment.
God has placed every person in this room with purpose. We do not need to accomplish great things. We just need to live for Him.
Life Application
This week, pay attention to the people and moments God places in your path. The stranger, the phone call, the unexpected conversation. Instead of dismissing them as coincidence, ask God if He is using them to speak to you or to work through you.
Ask yourself:
- Is there a “boat” God has been sending me that I have been refusing to get into?
- What ordinary skills or experiences from my past might God be preparing to use in my future?
- Am I willing to say yes to God even when I do not understand the full picture?
- Who in my life right now might need me to be the person God sends to them?
God sees the whole picture. We only see what is in front of us. The invitation is to trust Him with the rest and to say, here I am. Send me.