Providing in Real Time

God provides in real time. Recently, I've struggled with uncertainty about where I'll live and work for the next... ever. I am puzzled and sometimes whiny, but God keeps knowledge about the future on a strictly need-to-know basis with me. So, I trust God sometimes, when I'm not freaking out and crying to all my friends about how unfair it is that I don't know everything and have it all figured out, and that my life isn't just already lived-out and decided for me.

A second problem that I've been facing is how to teach this crazy Bible class. I have trouble feeling prepared for it. I can't see very far past the day's lesson, because it's all I can do to keep up with the Bible-reading and study it takes to teach the Bible. I have confessed here before about how I have no degree that is related to God/Jesus/Bible-anything. I find myself burdened with my own questions, let alone those of the students, which overlap often.

Tonight, in the grocery store, God showed up. Actually, it was my friend, K.

I went to the grocery store to pick up essentials (you know, vegetables and chocolate), and I turned and saw K there, saying hey! "Hi, K! What a neat place to meet, so weird, right? I almost never buy groceries..." No. Really.

As we chatted, I realized I had a beautiful opportunity before me; K is trained in theology, and was a professor at M College for a while. So I asked her the burning question inside me this week: how do I make First Samuel interactive for the students... or whatever?

She asked what resources I'd come across so far (nice, K), and I mentioned this book I've been using, and she was all like, "yeah, that was the book I used. The editor is in our theology department." Seriously, K?! Without the exclamation point!?!! This was a big deal for me, because I'm still easily starstruck, perhaps, by people who have written books. But, STILL. I left the grocery store with excitement, feeling affirmed in every which way.

THANKS, K: I hope you still had time tonight to bake for the thingy tomorrow morning.

And NICE one, God!