Grace, not coincidence

some of the best conversations start with a cup of coffee.

My first year of college is coming to an end, and that’s crazy. College is the first year where you are away from your parents, and you aren’t being nagged to make your bed or go to church. You are responsible for you, and your decisions are not dictated by Mom or Dad.

I went through two weeks of doubting God. And these two weeks felt empty and upsetting, but also growing and incredible. I began to wonder whether my faith was really something I believed in my heart, or simply something I was accustomed to because I was raised in a Christian household. I began to wonder if God was just a coping mechanism, or someone who is real and present. I began to wonder if the Bible was just a collection of fictional stories, or whether it was and is the Word of God.
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I let these questions crowd me, and I threw them at the people who love me. I got two answers. The ones from Christians who constantly pursued me to cling to the truth even when it didn’t seem true, and the ones who weren’t who told me to believe what makes me feel good. I was clearly in a pickle.

The thing is, I knew how to pull out the typical Christian cards you take out when you don’t understand something about life or the Bible. “God is so good, no matter what,” “His timing/will, not yours,” “Our brains are simply not able to comprehend certain things, and that’s okay.” I knew how to say exactly what a good Christian should say in those moments of suffering, brokenness, or questioning. But I wanted to know the full truth. I wanted to know that I was believing in a God that definitely exists. I wanted to know that if I died tomorrow, I would not be all wrong. I wanted to know that we were made for so much more than to live a temporary life on earth, and then die for eternity.
So what did I do? Well, first, I cried. Yup, right in Union Grounds, the cafe underneath the cafeteria of the BLUU. Trevor, a guy who works at my church asked how I was, and I just let it out. He told me that every single question I had was a question he asked, and then met with me a couple days later. He recommended this book called “In Defense of the Bible” and I ordered it the day of.

Then, I decided to not go to church. That was weird. I read the book Trevor recommended instead.

After, I had a conversation with my college pastor that I didn’t want to have, but it happened anyway. He spoke truth to me that I didn’t want to hear and it was that I was pushing away the possibility that God is real completely. I got mad, but not because I was hurt. I got mad because he was right, and I don’t like being wrong.

That week, I kept my Bible on my shelf, and went through life without it. I constantly got texts from my discipleship leaders and people who cared about me. I was kinda annoyed about people caring for me, and that was definitely a red flag. Why am I getting angry for people caring about me?
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Okay, here comes the good part now. Last week, I was at Einstein Bro’s reading that book Trevor recommended. I asked an old dude beside me to watch my stuff because I drank way too much coffee and I needed to go to the restroom. When I came back, he asked me about the book and I gave him a summary of it. He said he wanted to read it. He told me about a time when he was questioning the Lord, and every question he wondered was a question I was struggling with. He then told me that it was his pastor who gave him this card that helped lead him to the truth. On one side were prophecies, and on the other side were those prophecies being fulfilled. When I met with Trevor, he told me a few prophecies that rung in me. Things that would only happen if God did exist. I asked him for the card, and he said he would find it for me.

Then, on Thursday, I was eating at the cafeteria with a friend, and a worker from the BLUU sits down in the booth next to me. I am laughing about something that I can’t remember, and he compliments me on my happiness. I was creeped out at first, especially when he after asks for my name. His name is Daniel, like my brother. Daniel asked if he could share something on his heart. I nodded, and he took out a tiny Bible of the New Testament and reads from John about abiding in the Lord. Then, he said, “Olivia, what do you do when the truth doesn’t seem true though?” I swear, I wanted to cry. My mind was racing in this moment because what are the chances? Seriously, what are the chances??? I told him to cling to those who love you, something I wasn’t doing a very good job of. Then I told him that I was struggling with my faith, and he said that it wasn’t an accident that I met him in the time and place that I did. I’ve been asking God to show me himself, and he was the whole time.

The next day, I had coffee with Katie Danner. She’s a cool gal and a lot like me. We talked all the way into our first class, but it didn’t really faze us. We asked each other questions, and we talked about how God spoke to us. I think God would forgive us for being late to class.

That night, there was a worship going on in the middle of campus; we call it The Commons. Felipe individually texted me to come out and I said yes without truly knowing what I was committing myself to. Someone told me it was 2 hours and I laughed at the joke that was not a joke at all. I assumed I could just leave early, but I end up in the very front of this group of people worshipping the Lord through song. I didn’t want to be alone, but God then sends Abby Mangus up to sing with me. We worshipped for the whole 2 hours. Then we talked over Chick Fi-la.

Today, I had coffee with Elle Merritt. I wish I met Elle earlier this year because like Katie, we have a lot in common. We just talked. And laughed. And we had a really, really good time. I wish she wasn’t transferring, but one thing I learned about God is that he is always there. These big life decisions that we make are scary and we ponder whether it is God telling us it is the right/wrong thing to do or just our minds manipulating it to that idea… but really, God is just there saying “I’m with you no matter what. I know you, and I love you, and I will walk with you through whatever comes our way.”

I should probably get to where I was going with this post, because I get side tracked a lot. God was there the whole time, even in my season of doubt. He spoke to me through these encounters that could not have been coincidence. Sometimes, we are stubborn, and when we think we are just considering another perspective of what could be, we are pretty darn set on that one perspective. And here is the conclusion I came up with. God is real. But if I do ever come up with the question of whether he exists or not again, I’m going to think about it in these two ways:

1. If we were completely wrong, and we die and go up to realize that there is no God, did we really waste our lives? Living a Christian life is living a life of love, kindness, patience, and community. It is a life that puts your neighbor over yourself. It is a live of extending grace to those who need extra grace, and a life of decreasing ourselves to increase Him. I don’t think that is a wasteful life.
2. Isn’t it even scarier to choose to let the skepticism of whether God exists or not lead you to a life of atheism…and then you encounter the day that He actually does exist?

There are too many things that we won’t understand. And yup, that could be the “Our brains are too small to comprehend his greatness” card, but it could also be simply humbling ourselves to the reality of the fact itself. Knowing that there is a God that cares for us so much is enough for me. Thinking about the hope He promises us makes me feel warm and sweet…like all the coffee cups I drank these past two weeks.

So point of the story: coffee is always the answer. Just kidding (kinda). What I learned is that I need to start opening myself up to the fact that God is always there, even when this truth doesn’t always seem true as Daniel would put it. At the worship night, the guy hitting the block to make music spoke in between the song about rejoicing in the simple gospel. He told us that he thinks that some of us out there are complicating the Gospel, and that we shouldn’t . God loves us, and he made us white as snow through sending his son to the cross for us. We should rejoice in that, because that is something worth rejoicing for.
It wasn’t a coincidence that Trevor met me at Union, and I chose to let myself be honest with him. It wasn’t a coincidence that I met David Pointer at Einstein Bro’s who is a pastor at Fielder Church in Arlington. It wasn’t a coincidence Daniel from the BLUU decided to open up his heart about the struggle of accepting the truth of the Bible. It wasn’t a coincidence that Felipe texted me about this worship night when he never texts me. It wasn’t a coincidence that Abby stood in the very front with me and sang to the Lord when I felt alone. It wasn’t a coincidence that the musician said that he felt like many of us were complicating the Gospel. It was all God.
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Oh, and God, thanks for all the sweet company and good coffee this week. You have blessed me with a joy that I need to open myself up to and appreciate more.