At church last night I was asked if I had any prayer requests/praise reports. I mentioned, very vaguely, that we were facing some major changes and at the same time had received some confirmation that the Lord was going to be taking care of things. 

The changes have to do with the end of our work careers. We are only a few years out from a point of financial independence. But this year, my wife’s job is under so much uncertainty, that it looks like a better option to just retire from her company, put the money in an account, and then try and find another job that will hold us for maybe 5 years. That would be the major change/difficulty part of the equation.  

Well my work has had some changes coming up too. The first was that we would be changing offices. Not too big of a deal, but I love the current setup, and was expecting, based on some of the options I’d seen, that wherever we moved was going to be a downgrade. The second was a resounding increase in health coverage. But a better office was found, one that I would actually prefer going to… and the health coverage turned out to be no extra cost at all. That was the praise report part of the equation. 

While I’ve explained some of the details here, I didn’t when asked last night. So with the intentionally vague reference, the person asked me: “so, you are just asking for clarity?” 

I said yes, but I was thinking about it on the way in this morning, and in fact, that’s probably not the case. We started out thinking we’d better be praying about these decisions, and I have been. But my prayers haven’t really been about what decision to make, because I have an odd sense that our decisions won’t really be invoked here. There have been times when I have had to make decisions and prayer was a big part of my preparation for doing so. But early on, I had a sense that whether my retires or not would probably be out of her hands. The decisions made by the company would reveal whether she stayed or went. Then her next job would likely be a matter of doors opening and walking through, rather than careful deliberation and decision-making. Of course, there are always decisions that must be made, we aren’t passive in all this, but this time it feels much more like we just let the Lord handle it and he’s going to work it out. Which is why the stuff with my work blessed me so much. They worked out without me really needing to do much. To my mind, that acted as a sort of confirmation that God would take care of this. 

But this morning it did strike me as noteworthy that I wasn’t really seeking clarity for the matter. It’s more a matter of just letting it go and trusting the Lord will work it all out.  

One other thing God is reminding me of in these days, is that when I pray for God to take care of things, I of course have some ideas as to what that ought to look like. But my ideas may or may not be worthwhile. God may do something that is actually better in my life, even though it doesn’t look like what I had imagined would be better. So with that in mind, I’m accepting whatever the Lord has for us in this time.