Letting God Be God in 2020 by Mrs. S'ambrosia Wasike

In just a few days, the year 2019 will come to a close. Along with it comes the end of a decade. The end of one year and the beginning of another is always a time we like to set aside to really take a close look at our lives and how they’re progressing, but the end of a decade? That’s something else entirely.

The Way We See It

For many women, as they reflect on how they are closing this decade, there is a sense of pride in how they have allowed God to take them through hard situations, transform their lives, and lead them into a greater understanding of the women He created them to be. These women will undoubtedly be starting their journey into the next decade with great anticipation for what God will have in store for them in this new season.

Before I continue, I want you to pause and allow yourself to be one of those women, if you’re not already. Take a minute to answer these questions for yourself:

1.     What hard situations have I faced this decade that God has brought me through?

2.     How has God transformed my life this decade?

3.     What kind of woman has God called/created me to be? What steps I am taking or plan to take to walk in that identity?

Now, there are some of you reading this post that may have reflected on your past decade and instead of seeing how much God has done for you, all you saw was what you lacked. Maybe you were hoping to be married by now or maybe you hoped that you would have children by now or maybe you wanted to be working at your dream job, but there’s much more to all of this than what we can see.

The Way God Sees It

Let me just start by hitting you with a hard reality. Our days on earth are numbered. We get maybe 7 or 8 decades before we have to leave the lives we know on this earth. Not only are our lives finite, but we are also extremely limited in our understanding of how to live our best lives. Our vision is confined to the present. We can only see the options that are directly in front of us, and our decisions are heavily influenced by our emotions. And don’t even get me started on how complicated our emotions make decision-making for us as women. Don’t. Even.

As tragic as the reality of our lives on earth may seem, there’s God. God is not only omniscient (all knowing), but He exists outside of time. Time is a reality that He placed on humanity, I’m sure to keep us humble and dependent on Him, but in His reality, He is not limited by time. He can see the beginning from the end. In short, He’s got a bird’s eye view not only of the world, but of the timeline of our lives.

So, let’s say you’ve got a choice to make… you feel like it’s time to move, but you’ve got a few choices of where to go. Will you choose City A or City B? In most cases, our heart may be telling us to choose one option over the other, and because our decisions are so driven by our emotions, we will typically choose what looks good at the moment. We have no idea what such a choice holds for our future. But God does. He can see every decision that led you to this crossroad, and He knows which option you’re going to choose as well as what it will mean for your life. None of it takes Him by surprise nor is He limited by our decisions. But the most amazing thing about God is that He actually wants to be part of our decision-making. He wants to share His heart with us and direct us in the way that we should go. Why should you spend so much time fighting to figure out which way your life should go, when you have a connection with someone who can help you navigate each of life’s paths in a way that will be best for you?

We all have probably heard the scripture that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. I want to challenge you to make this scripture a mantra for the upcoming decade. When things don’t go the way you expect, remind yourself that God sees something in your future that you don’t. Remind yourself that His understanding of what is good may be the complete opposite of your understanding, but He can be trusted because His plans for us are always good.

For me personally, during my single days, I often felt discouraged about the lack of potential husband material in the men that I knew. I had nearly reached my 30s and I still hadn’t really clicked with anyone. It was starting to feel impossible. I had my sights set on a specific type of guy, and a lot of the decisions I made for my life in that season were an attempt to score the kind of guy I was sure God wanted me to marry. But God had been setting up my future spouse since I was 14 years old, y’all, and I had no idea!

The Way It Happened for Me

My husband is Kenyan, and I am from Kansas. When I was 14, one of his uncles got connected with my parents, and we hosted him in our home while he spoke in churches around the city. I had a deep love for Africa, so I constantly found myself talking to the pastor for hours, asking questions about Kenya and God. Over the years, we continued to host him every time he was in town. When I got into college, he introduced me to Ray.

Now, just to prove that God knows what is best for our lives, I want to be clear and tell you that when we connected that first time, there was zero connectivity between the two of us. I could tell he was not spiritually someone I could connect with (I wasn’t even sure he was a Christian at that point… he was going through a tough season), so ended up ignoring him for several years. See, even though we were supposed to be together, God knew it was not time yet. Just because something is God’s will doesn’t mean that it’s God’s timing. Yes, Ray was for me and I was for him, but not yet.

Can I just pause here for a second to remind you to trust God in the “not yet”? Can I just get you to take a second to think about what my marriage would have been like if we had gotten married at that point? Yeah… trust God, my friends.

So, to make a long story short, during that time that we were not speaking, Ray ended up rededicating his life to God, and God put me in a position where I had to sacrifice everything I wanted to serve my family back home. Then an opportunity arose for me to go to Kenya for three weeks to help lead a youth conference. While I was there, situation after situation arose that caused Ray and I to be forced together (i.e. I was supposed to travel with my brother, but he cancelled last minute so I travelled alone, and Ray’s uncle was supposed to be there to lead me around, but he had to travel back to the States the entire time I was in Kenya, so Ray had to be my chaperone). Our hearts completely merged during that trip, and within the year we were married. It’s been six years now, and without a doubt we both can say that we are living our calling here in Kenya both as individuals and as a couple. God did this, and we’re so grateful.

I share my story with you not so that you can apply it topically to your own life and start brainstorming about who God might be planning for you to be with. My story is my own and your story will be your own. I just want you to see that I spent so many years searching in so many places for my spouse, and God had already set me up with someone that I would never find because he lived over 8,000 miles away from me! There was no way I could have possibly made this happen for myself. I had to allow God to direct me into a destiny I never knew could have been mine.

As we embark on a new decade together, let’s do so with our eyes firmly fixed on Jesus, trusting that as long as we are seeking Him, this decade is going to look exactly the way He wants it to. And if that’s the case, there’s no place we would rather be.

-Blessings

S'Ambrosia

About the Author

S'ambrosia Wasike is a missionary in Kitale, Kenya, where she and her husband have a nonprofit called The Joshua Blueprint. They partner with orphanages to teach children about worship and relationship with God through the arts.