During the Christmas season a couple years ago, I became dizzy and sick every time I bent over to pick up wrapping paper or anything else. The dizziness didn’t pass but kept getting worse. Since I had just purchased new glasses, I began to suspect they were the problem. When my eye doctor compared the type of bifocals and type of lenses of the new glasses with my old ones, except for the stronger prescription, they were the same.
At first, he was sure I just had an inner ear problem unrelated to my new glasses. After I finally convinced him I could bend over just fine without getting dizzy wearing my old glasses but not when wearing the new, he sat and stared at the two pair of glasses. I prayed silently, “Lord, please make him smarter than he is.” Not that my eye doctor isn’t smart, but I knew he was stumped!
Finally he said, “The slant of the frames of the new glasses is a little bit different than then the old frames.” When I asked if he could fix that, he replied that he could. He left the room and returned a few minutes later. We agreed I would wear my old glasses for a few days until my ongoing dizziness passed, then try the new ones. That’s what I did and I had no problem after that.
My doctor said in 35 years of being an eye doctor, he’d never encountered this problem, but God had the solution.
Early this week Donn and I have been wrestling with the challenges of publishing Sarah’s Legacy Shared, the second book in my Sarah’s Legacy series. I made good notes a year ago when we published book one, but still we ran into new challenges. Tuesday evening when Ingram Spark finally accepted all our files in the first round of validation, I realized that again and again throughout the entire process, God had made us “smarter than we are.” He had given us ideas of how to fix each problem when we were stumped or had shown us where to find the answers.
In June of 2017, I went to a series of classes on how to do the work of self-publishing. However, I believe the presenter, who had her own publishing company, had a different agenda—to convince us we couldn’t do it ourselves. In the natural, she was probably right—at least in my case. But she had forgotten to figure God into the equation.
Catherine Marshall says when her husband (a pastor) died, the men of the church came to talk to her. They had facts and figures showing why she and her son wouldn’t have the finances they needed to live. However, Catherine said, even though supposedly figures don’t lie, the men had forgotten to factor God into the equation! How often do we make the same mistake when looking at impossible situations?
In this country self-reliance and independence were highly praised while we were growing up, but God is teaching us that He wants us to rely on Him. The past few days when Donn was stumped while working on photo shop issues that are far outside my skill set, I cried out to God again and again. “Father, you know I have no idea. Please show him what to do. Please help him.” In other words, make him smarter than he is. My frustration turned to faith as God answered again and again.
Do you have an impossible situation in your life? I challenge you to ask our heavenly Father to make you, or someone who can help you, smarter than you/they are!
Father, forgive us for so often forgetting to figure you into the equation when looking at impossible situations. Only you have the ability to make us smarter than we are! Amen.
