None of us can say our lives have gone exactly as planned. We started with Plan A, but that evolved into Plan B or C. Some of us are on Plan Q.

Money troubles are not something we write into our plans, but most of us have experienced them anyway. According to statistics, financial stress is the number one cause of divorce, so we know tight funds are common among us. The question is, how do we handle them? How long does it take for us to bring God into the equation? And as we share our dilemmas with him, are we able to wait with patience when he doesn’t do anything?

When Nate and I were at our low point financially with seven children in the house, we were concentrating on praying hard over money issues and even fasting now and then to add power to those prayers. Right then things got much worse. We had a major flood from an upstairs toilet (yesterday’s blog) resulting in extensive damage. When we sought God’s explanation, he didn’t give one. (I’ve learned since then that God never has to explain himself. Just read the book of Job.)

One year after our flood, however, we were looking at two completely remodeled bathrooms with brand new ceramic tile floors (around the tubs, too). The walls and ceiling had been repaired, and the old fluorescent tubes had been replaced with recessed lighting. Homeowner’s insurance had paid for all of it at a time when refurbishing our well-used house would have been impossible.

A few years later, when we put the house on the market, the old, tired bathrooms had already been brought up to date without our having to pay for it. Although God wasn’t required to explain himself, these circumstances did it for him. And finally we understood.

God had, indeed, answered our prayers. It wasn’t as we’d expected, but isn’t that just like God? He’s unpredictable and virtually never responds to our requests by shaping circumstances as we’ve envisioned them. That’s because his ideas are always better than ours, and he knows what we need better than we do.

Looking back over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern. During periods of great need, when I’ve spent weeks praying with deep fervency, each situation got worse before it got better. It was as if God was in the process of stepping in to help at the same time that the devil was working hard to thwart him. Satan causes chaos, but God overrides that with order.

In other words, when we’ve asked God to rescue us and immediately thereafter life falls apart, we should get excited! The turmoil around us is a sure sign that God is about to do something brilliant!

“The Lord says, ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!’ ” (Isaiah 43:18,19a)