What You See is What You Get

I was listening to music in the car the other day when the Sara Groves song "What I Thought I Wanted" came on. I'd already been pondering the way folks react to what happens to them, and this song thrust me deeper into my musing on the subject.

I was visiting Savannah, GA with my daughter. It was the SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) Accepted Students weekend. We were treated to events that were planned with excellence and (of course) an artistic flair. We were both impressed and filled with visions of what her four years at this wonderful school - in a beautiful city - would be like. I found myself hoping that it would all work out and that she would be launched into adulthood living her dreams.

I would be less than honest if I didn't admit that in the midst of all of our excitement I didn't also have a twinge of anxiety. What if the finances don't work out? What if she makes a bad choice that changes the trajectory of her life? What if , what if, what if?

These thoughts do not rise simply out of my imagination. They come, rather from my own experience. Most of us can think of things that we thought we wanted, and in the end, got something else entirely (Sara Groves says, "What I thought I wanted and what I got instead).

There are different ways to handle it when we get something different than what we want. We probably all know people who are filled with bitterness because something(s) didn't work out as expected. Rather than enjoy the present, these folks dwell on why they cannot be happy. For them, life is absurd and meaningless. But there is another way... Others are open to whatever it was that they got instead... That openness allows them to see God's hand at work. This doesn't mean that they're making the best of a bad situation. It means that they are able to see how what they got instead was the best. The unexpected, un-looked for, and even unwanted outcomes lead to a place filled with the blessings and presence of God.

Sometimes our plans, hopes, dreams, and fervent prayers do not turn out the way we want. What comes next depends on how we respond. When we have eyes to see the hand of God working His wise and loving plans in and through our circumstances, abundant life is what we get.