God is so beautiful you know. He always knows what I need, all the time. I will never be able to understand how the things in my life pan out. Just in case you've ever doubted God's ability to singlehandedly influence your life, I think this story might tell you other wise.
So about 2 weeks ago during the first week I was on campus, they had some vendors set up in the quad that had some info. Me, being the new college student I was, was obviously looking for some free stuff. As I walked around to a table setup there were people sitting there that were a part of the Oakland Neighborhood Partnership Program. I have no idea what these people do, but I picked up a little square map and guide that they had sitting there. So I've had this map and guide for the past 2 weeks and I haven't used it yet, until this past saturday when were looking for a bus to catch to get somewhere. As I opened up the map and guide I noticed that there were no bus routes on it but instead there were just local listings of shops and organizations around. Me being dissapointed that there was no help in this map for the bus information I needed at that time, I closed it and put it in my back pocket. As we were coming back from the mall we stopped by my friend's girlfriend's campus downtown. It was saturday night and the talk of what church we were going to go to Sunday morning came up since I was supposed to do research and I didn't. At this time I reached in my back pocket to look at the map to see what was on it and I noticed that under the Locate Community Services category they had churches. As I started to look down all the listings there was only one church name that stood out as something that could be more contemporary that fit my liking. The name of this church is North Way Christian Community Oakland and it just so happened that is was 4 blocks away!
I pulled up their site on my phone and read their description and my heart immediately got excited. They also have a 9:00 service which I love because that's the same time my church services started back home. When Sunday morning came around we walked down there and saw the seemingly small building where this service was going to take place. Stupid me, I was walking and drawing conclusions to how this church would look on the inside, but of course, God was ready to surprise me. We walked in and we were greeted by some incredibly nice people and sat down near the back row. As praise and worship began I was impressed and very optimistic. As service moved on and the message was finished they had a little more praise and worship at the end. At this little praise session is when my song came on. This was a song that we had sung at my church at home a couple times and I always love it. The lyrics go:
"I believe, you're my healer.
I believe, you are all I need.
I believe, you're my portion.
I believe, you're more than enough for me.
Jesus you're all I need."
The song name is Healer. It's so simple but it just connected with me and I felt at home. God lifted me up in a totally foreign place. He started leading me to this very place two weeks ago as he guided my steps to that little table and pushed me to pick up that little map guide for a totally different reason than what I had expected. God literally led me to my new church that is within walking distance of my school. Isn't it just crazy how he works? How the heck does he do that!? God confirmed it with a song and just gave me peace and joy. I just felt at home. I didn't even have to do anything.
I love the Hebrew meanings of the words in the bible. I feel like they better encompass the meaning of the text. The Hebrew reference to God as healer is "Jehovah Rapha", meaning "The God who heals". God is just incredible. The way he moves subconsciously through our lives is undeniable. And I will never be able to understand why I deserve his grace and his favor. I'm everything but perfect yet he still leads me. I'm so blessed to call him my God. Things like this just tell me he's there and he hears my cries. Thank You.
No comments:
Post a Comment