Learning from Things That Never Happened

I often hear educators discuss how different methods of teaching can make students more well-rounded. They can go to great lengths debating how to best explain certain points and impart certain pieces of knowledge, citing experience and observation as their witnesses.

Well, they still can't beat God. God created all things out of nothing, and He made man in His own image. In my life, I'm realizing that He also teaches out of nothing; He molds His children out of things that never even happened.

After I decided to apply to the University of Hong Kong last year, my family did their best to prepare me for life in Hong Kong. My parents invested time and money to aid me in learning the Cantonese language. I familiarized myself with the lifestyle of Hong Kong. We disciplined my brothers to take over many responsibilites I have at home, and I helped to train church talents to sub for me in my music and language ministries.

A couple of weeks ago, my application was confirmed to be denied. Yet even as I cope with the rejection, I find myself amazed when I realize how much these months have taught me.

In terms of skill, I mastered an addition language within 2 years time, and I learned many essentials of lone survival. With regards to my family and friends, I learned to treasure them so much more as the reality of impeding separation weighed upon me during those months. Others also benefitted from this ordeal, since I know my brothers and trainees wouldn't have been taught so much if I had not been going anywhere.

Yet most importantly, this event has taught me to trust God and live one day at a time for Him. After living through several months without knowledge of where I'd be within the year, I was trained to wait upon God. Realizing that I would soon be surviving on my own, I was compelled to grow even closer to God in my personal walk, since I would not have the spiritual aid and security of family and home church soon.

Most people might consider these lessons to have been learned "in vain," since I am not going to Hong Kong after all. But I know better. I know God was at work, molding me and the people in my lives through this seemingly failed ordeal. With the apparent disillusionment came valuable lessons and intimate moments with our Lord that I would never have known otherwise. God teaches in mysterious ways. Yes, He really does.