“How accurate are these things?”
“Umm . . . the box says 99%.
“So it could be wrong. Right?”
“I think that means it might say you aren’t, but you really are. Not the other way around.”
So began our parenting adventure 17 years ago, just months before we planned to head overseas to live long term. I have to say, it wasn’t the most thrilling moment of my life. In fact, I was stunned. I gave serious thought to the possibility that God had made a mistake. Like maybe He took his eyes off me for a second and then looked back and said, “Oh, hey, are you pregnant? Oops.”
Yes, I know, theologically unsound. Pretty sure God never says “oops.” So I spent that summer pondering how on earth this could really be good timing in light of all I hoped to do that fall in China. God led me to Psalm 16:5-6, “Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup. You have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
Those verses told me God is both sovereign and good. Therefore me being pregnant at that time was from the hands of a good God who knows what He’s doing. That was hard for me to accept at the time, but I grudgingly said, “Ok God, show me how this is good” and He said, “Challenge accepted” and proceeded to blow my mind with His awesomeness. True story.
Those verses came back to me over and over again through the years. It was in little moments, like when I stood on the street corner with my 3 month old, hailing cab after cab because each one I called was snaked by a stranger, and I repeated to myself, “This is assigned. This is assigned.” It was in big moments, like when we were suddenly asked to move to Singapore and leave all that we had come to love, “This too is assigned.”
Sometimes I can look back and see so clearly how it was God who intervened and made things so much better than I planned (hello, son). Other times I am still left wondering, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t accomplish what He wanted. It just means I can’t see it yet.
I’ve been mulling those verses again lately, realizing that I haven’t been as conscious as I’d like to be, or need to be, of God’s hand in the details, great and small, of my life. Something changes in my heart when I settle on the fact that nothing will come today without God’s permission, without His promise to use it for good, without His commitment to be in it and above it.
This is assigned.
