May 12th, 2025

By Rebecca Vickery

Have you ever noticed how after you learn a new word, you hear it everywhere?  It’s not as though people suddenly start using the word more often, but because you now understand it, you recognize it when you hear it.  It’s the same way that when you are unfamiliar with an area, you don’t know where you are when you look around.  After a few days of walking the streets, things start to be more familiar.  Then you start to recognize when you get to a part of town from a different way.  The routes connect in your mind.  “Oh, here we are.”  “I know where we are now.”  The lights have been turned on, so to speak.

Before you know God, the things of God are gibberish.  They are city streets that you don’t recognize, and routes you’ve never taken.  You don’t have a smart phone to tell you which way to go and so all of it just looks foreign.  Unknown.  But when you encounter God for the first time, the light goes on.  Suddenly thing that made no sense make all the sense that you could ever need.  His way connects all the routes so that you know which way you’re going.  Eventually it will all make sense in the context of your relationship with God.  

Romans 8:28 says that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes.  That’s a lot of things.  ALL things.  So even when we were walking around in darkness, God still had a purpose for all of it.  I don’t know how to wrap my brain fully around such a concept, but what I do know is this:  God is trustworthy.  He is the thing that makes all other things make sense.  So as a person who believes in Jesus-the way, the truth and the life, I see God’s handiwork all the time.  

When we were first starting out and had barely any money, I would pray before going to the grocery store.  There was one time we needed to buy a lot of ingredients, and I had taken coupons for everything possible.  I had 18.70 to spend.  We got everything we needed in the cart and it came to 18.65.  I laughed and marveled at God, who would not only take care of it, but leave me a few cents extra.  So I started to recognize that even when it seemed impossible that we would be able to afford what we needed, I didn’t need to worry, because God would take care of it.  Future grocery store visits would be less an exercise in faith, and more a peaceful stride.  “I know where we are.”

The more I knew that God could get me through the little things, the more aware I became that He could deliver me through the harder things.  In Proverbs 31:25, it says of a woman of great worth, “Strength and honor are her clothing, and she can laugh at the time to come.”  She doesn’t laugh at the time to come because she has grown bitter or resentful.  She hasn’t stored up all her anxieties in her heart.  She has cast them on the Lord.  She knows that it doesn’t matter what she comes up against.  She will be delivered from all of it.  She recognizes that there will be a way even when there seems to be no way, because the One who directs her way will be with her.  

I don’t know how much time it took for me to start being more confident of who God is, and who I am to God.  I do know that I still have so much to learn.  But the more time I spend with God, the more my vocabulary increases.  The more words I recognize in use.  As I continue to move and grow in Him, and see Him answering prayers, I become more inclined to want to bring him those harder prayer requests, those things that are so heavy on your soul that the longer you carry them yourself, the more bent over you are in burden.  I want to laugh at the days ahead.  I want to finally have that yoke that is light and easy.  The only way I can do this is to spend more time with Him so I can understand His ways better. 

Perhaps you’d like to join me in praying for this.  Lord, I know that so many times I have been inclined to stress out over the future.  To be anxious for tomorrow, even though you say today has enough worries of its own.  IT DOES LORD.  Forgive my anxious ways, and help me to trust you today.  Until the day when I may laugh at the days to come, because you will have defeated my unbelief.  LORD, I believe.  Help my unbelief.  In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.