Some of my greatest epiphanies occur behind the wheel. Thankfully these flashes of insight usually occur when I’m alone, because they’re almost always accompanied by tears. (You guys are going to think I cry all the time. Actually, I never! Just lately…)

For instance, a couple of weeks ago, on my solo way to a baby shower, I was listening to the hymn Amazing Grace. I’d just been fretting about something or other that was feeding my discontentment in a certain area, and wham! The words from the song hit me in the chest and immediately I felt convicted of the following, and I even jotted it down so I’d remember:

How dare we think that God’s plans for us are less than what He promises?

Seems pretty simple, but as with all epiphanies, it was so right on for my internal angsts. The lyrics kept washing over me…

“Amazing grace that saved a wretch like me–I was blind–but now–I see…”

With these truths before me, I definitely felt wretched! I’d been comparing again, and finding my life “wanting”–am I the only one that struggles with this? Anyway, how dare I be discontent with any part of this God-ordained life I lead, one that frankly, is incredibly blessed above and beyond all that I could ever ask or think!

So I may not have the money to complete this or that disaster-waiting-to-happen or some such other tripe that got my contentedness off track to begin with. So what?

Someone once said, “We should not doubt in the dark what He has shown us in the light.”

Worth repeating: “We should not doubt in the dark what He has shown us in the light.”

Yes, I was so blind but now I see.

Because, as Mark Lowry put it so eloquently:

“Anything short of hell is a privilege.”

Don’t you agree? Don’t let a little darkness morph into a faith crisis as I almost did. Rest in God’s sovereignty. We are shaped through our pain.

The plans God has for us are for our good, not for our evil. This doesn’t mean His plans are for our financial gains, or for our material comforts, or for us to be considered popular by the masses, or for one month without health tests. To me, it means that the circumstances He allows in our lives will bear fruit for good, not evil, if we keep trusting!

Father, take the wheel. Because in my hands, it too easily detours…and sadly, wide is the path to destruction when we let our failures take root, and turn into bitternesses, and forget in the darkness what You told us…in the light.