I was up late the other night. As is the case most nights, because I find myself mindlessly scrolling through Instagram for hours on end. And on this particular night I had scrolled through just about everything I could scroll through. So, I transferred my attention to Facebook to mindlessly scroll through that. And when I signed onto Facebook I immediately had a notification. “Hillsong Barcelona streaming live now.”
Wow. Hillsong Barcelona- haven’t thought of them since I studied abroad. That was my home church when I lived in Spain, and funny enough, at one point in time if you Googled “Hillsong Barcelona” my blog was the third search option that popped up. Anyways, with nothing more to scroll through I thought, “Eh why not.”
So I turned the live stream on and waited for service to start. For the first ten minutes I watched the preservice announcement slides and listened to worship music in Spanish. As the songs played I was able to recognize the melodies and knew I knew the songs in English, but I can hardly remember lyrics in English let alone remember them in Spanish. Then service started and Pastor Juan and Damsy started with a few announcements. Pastor Juan speaks a million words a minute, but even with how fast he spoke I could still understand him. Somewhere in my brain I was able to comprehend it and know exactly what he was saying. After the announcements came worship, and that’s when God whispered to me.
Compared to preservice announcement music, the worship set displayed the lyrics on the screen the way you would see them if you were in service. And instead of just listening to the music and going along with it, I listened, read the lyrics on the screen, and tried my best and fastest to translate them. So the whole time rather than worshipping along with the song, I was working my brain to try to understand and comprehend what was being said. And I messed it up for myself.
I learned a long time ago- while studying in Barcelona actually- that God works in inconceivable ways. He works across language barriers and socio-economic statuses. He works in the United States just as much as He does in Spain or in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He works in adults who have been around the church for a lifetime, and He works in young children who can barely piece together words.
So why is it that in that moment, I was still trying to make God fit into what I understand? Why did I need to translate lyrics when I know in my heart that the Holy Spirit understands Spanish.
That’s what led God to whispering, “Stop trying to understand.”
Because lately God has been saying over and over to me that I don’t need to- and truly will never be able to- understand Him or His ways. I don’t need to overanalyze and complicate the situation. I don’t need to think through all the steps and organize what to do next. I just need to keep going. Keep believing in His goodness. Keep trusting in His faithfulness. And keep relying on His love that will endure.
I see this image of Him looking at me, holding my face, staring into my eyes and telling me all the things I should have already learned by now…
“Meg, I created you to be organized and thorough and detailed and goal-oriented. I created you knowing you would plan everything and expect the world of it. But I did not create you to know my thoughts or know my reasoning. And I want to give you glimpses, I really do. I want to show you the pieces so that you can enjoy the ride along the way… So that it won’t hurt so much. So that you can rejoice along with me. But I know that when I do, you run off on your own. You take what is written in front of you, you work your brain to try to uncover it’s meaning, and then you try to turn it into something you can understand. But it’s not your job to understand.”
How do I rewire my brain in order to stay on the path God has set before me? How do I prevent myself from messing up opportunities because of my second nature need to understand? What do I do when all I want is for the world- my world- to make sense, but God keeps hinting at the fact that it won’t make sense- not anytime soon anyways.
Someone please tell me. Because I’m dying to understand.