Written by Shawn Naylor
For some time now, I’ve felt I’m not participating in building God’s kingdom. My financial support has all but vanished, doors have closed, and the mental toll has been great. I’ve had to seriously consider applying to other jobs. I have never written a proper resumé before. It might not seem like much, but I was afraid to write it. I mean, what could I write?
Even as I write this column, I’m faced with the unknown. Covid-19 has shaken the very fabric of what we’re accustomed to. So much so that many of us aren’t valuing the present we’re living through, or what God is doing in the moment.
Instead, we find ourselves looking back on the past and how incredible it was. When I started my full-time occupation as a missionary for Youth for Christ, people commented on how things were in the past. Often, I took personal offense to this because I thought they were criticizing the direction I was taking the ministry. And maybe that was true.
I definitely make mistakes and I do welcome honest counsel. Yet still to this day, ten years into this job, people will refer to the time before I arrived. More often than not, this leaves me feeling defeated. I feel as though I’m not doing what I should be doing.
Moments like this remind me of the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis, a young man who has been given dreams and visions of the future. Instead of being met with optimism and encouragement, he is met with betrayal, hardship, temptation, and deception.
All of this must have caused physical and psychological suffering. Finally, there comes a moment in Joseph’s life where he has to take a simple posture of humility and let God create the wonder and awe in his life. What a story of God establishing someone after all that suffering!
When I experience loss and uncertainty, I force myself to read 1 Peter 5:6-10—sometimes multiple times in a row. The first verse reads, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”
What a powerful reminder. Could a passage be clearer about how God will expose His wonder through your life? This passage commands us to take a posture of humility despite the garbage that comes our way.
Humility is the only posture that allows us to fully grasp the greatness of God’s amazing wonder.
Tied into humility is a reflective response. As we reflect honestly and deeply on our lives, we quickly realize all the moments that God’s paintbrush was making something we couldn’t see in the moment. God is working something out that is yet to be made known.
When God works it out, we will be left standing and thriving, fully encompassed in awe and wonder at what God has done. “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast” (1 Peter 5:10).
I finally did sit down and write my resumé. And creating it was actually highly encouraging. It was essentially a testimony of God’s providence in my life. When I look at my resumé, all I see is wonder. God planned every item on my resumé, opened each door, and then carried me through.
Seeing this brought me to a place where I was willing to be humble before God. Time and time again, God reveals Himself in all His wonder in ways only He can. So wherever you are while reading this, be confident God is working something in your life that will leave you speechless when it all comes together.