God's Unsearchable Ways

     About twenty five years ago, I drove up to a massive church building in Jackson, MS, where I began training in Evangelism Explosion. I’d been a Christian for about a year and wanted to learn how to share the Gospel with friends and family. I still remember the small perforated note cards that I tore apart, put on a ring and carried with me for the next six months. The same note cards traveled with us in various boxes and drawers through all our moves over the past eighteen years. Often, the only time I looked at them was when I was rummaging around for something else.
     Last year, I came across them again but in a uniquely different way. Since we didn’t bring any of our belongings with us when we moved to Korea, the note cards were left behind in some unmarked box in our storage room. God was giving me a newfound desire to share the Gospel with my students, so I spent time searching the internet for presentations that were in both English and Korean. That’s when I stumbled across the Evangelism Explosion website, wrote a note to someone asking for more  information and received my very first copy of the presentation in Korean!
     Just last week, as we were finishing up the semester, I pulled out my computer copy of EE and passed around the Gospel to the students in their own language. After sharing in my classes, it dawned on me that God doesn’t waste anything. The training I received so long ago and had almost forgotten became a useful tool in a country I never dreamed I’d be living in. But God knew. He knew when he led me to that first class in Mississippi that I would one day share the same message in Asia.
     I'm astounded by God's wisdom and sovereignty in orchestrating situations like these. It gives me great comfort as I look at other seemingly forgotten endeavors I’ve stuffed in a drawer somewhere. If God doesn’t waste anything, then I can count on him to use these life experiences in ways I could never have imagined.  I can trust that even though I have no idea what my future holds, I belong to a God who is able to masterfully put together bits and pieces from my past and make them into something beautiful to bless others in the present.

“Oh, how great are God's riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!” Rom 11:33