At the beginning of the year I was listening to a podcast
by John Eldredge called, “Give God Your Year.” You can listen to it here: https://www.ransomedheart.com/podcast/give-god-your-year.
It’s about hearing what God’s “theme” is for your year. That kind of “listening
prayer” can be done anytime, but it struck me that I had never been intentional
in hearing God’s theme for me at the beginning of the year. I had never paused
to ask what God had in mind for me for any given year. So, I took some
intentional time in prayer to ask God about that, and to listen for specific
themes/words. In a moment of just pausing, a moment of quietness, I felt the
impression of these words: “Trust for the Outcome.” At first my reaction was
something like—Really, that’s it? Just
trust God for the outcome? And I felt the answer to those questions was, “Yes,
just do your best, put it out there, and trust me.”
Feeling that this was a deep impression in my heart that
I heard this from God, I decided to put those words on a note card and tape it
to a shelf above my desk. I wanted a visual reminder of those words. Something right
in front of me that would remind me of what I heard during the first week of
January 2018. And so, I did. And that note card is still there today, reminding
me of the theme for the year.
Even though the year is still not over, I have seen this
theme come to life. It first came to light when Debbie and I received the news in
late 2017 that our daughter and husband (Jennifer and Andrew) were pregnant
with their third child. It was wonderful news—a miracle really—but also came
with some risk. You see, earlier in 2017 Jennifer was diagnosed with a
pituitary gland tumor and was told that more children would not be possible. Her
pregnancy was considered high risk because of hormone issues with the pituitary
gland. I could feel the heavy weight of worry on my part for Jennifer and
Andrew, and the health of this new baby. So many unknowns and things that could
go wrong. But I was quickly reminded of God’s theme for me at the beginning of
the year, “Trust for the Outcome.” And that is what I did, feeling the
confidence from God that everything was going to be ok. Just to rest in Him,
and trust him for the outcome. And that trust led to a very healthy boy in
August—William Scott Lee.
There was another part of my life where I felt challenged
trusting God. It was in my own work as a research leader at the company I work
for—TiER1 Performance Solutions. The research team at TiER1 puts together
several proposals each year with the hope of winning funding from the federal
government. The call for proposals comes out about 4 times a year. For each
call, the team typically responds with 2-3 proposals. In February, our team saw
7 topics that we were interested in. That’s a big number for our small research
team. It takes a lot of work just to put one proposal together. Multiply that
by seven—it’s hundreds and hundreds of hours. And the competition is stiff. The
average win rate for these research grants is one out of ten (10%). We all
leaned into submitting for these seven different topics, knowing that we may
only win one of these. Again, I felt my heart checked---just trust God for the outcome. I released my mind of anxiety and
worry about these proposals and put them in God’s hands. The result: the team
won five of the seven proposals! A 71% win rate! That’s unheard of with federal
research grants. Every company applying for these grants is very good and the
evaluation teams are very selective. In the process, I learned that I don’t
need to try and control everything. I can hand over my dreams, ambitions, and
worries to God and trust Him for the outcome. It’s not easy to do—I typically
lean in the direction of trying to control everything myself and “make things
happen.” But, I have found rest in giving the desire or worry to God and just trusting for the outcome.
Amazed by His Love,
Terence
