I love Sara Groves. She’s one of my favorite artists. I feel, as another one of her listeners expressed, that she often, “Puts into words what I feel.” Her raw and often profoundly simple lyrics always seem to inspire a sort of deep spiritual sigh—an emotional, “Yes. That’s it.” Yearning to peel my mind from other cares and bring it down from the typical frenzied high of the day, I put in one of her CDs while preparing dinner. In the midst of boiling kabocha for my Thai pumpkin soup, one of her songs caught my particular attention: Hello, Lord Hello, Lord, It’s me, your child. I have a few things on my mind. Right now I’m faced with big decisions, and I’m wondering if you have a minute. ‘Cause Right now I don’t hear so well, and I was wondering if you could speak up. I know that you tore the veil so I could sit with you in person; Hear what you’re saying. But right now, I just can’t hear you. I don’t doubt your sovereignty, I doubt my own ability to hear what you’re saying and to do the right thing. And I desperately want to do the right thing. But Right now I don’t hear so well, and I was wondering if you could speak up. I know that you tore the veil so I could sit with you in person; Hear what you’re saying. But right now, I just can’t hear you. And somewhere in the back of my mind I think you are telling me to wait. And though patience has never been mine, Lord, I will wait to hear from you. I’m waiting on you. Right now I don’t hear so well, and I was wondering if you could speak up. I know that you tore the veil so I could sit with you in person; Hear what you’re saying. But right now, I think you’re whispering. It would be nearly impossible to count how many times that song has resounded with me. Particularly the second verse. I consistently doubt my ability to hear God’s voice, especially when facing monumental (or what I convince myself are monumental) decisions in my life. But yesterday, as I was reflecting on the words, a thought struck me…Doubting my ability to perceive God’s direction could actually be doubting God’s ability to make his direction known to me, which is, in essence, actually doubting his sovereignty. Huh. Never thought of it that way before. Essentially, I guess any type of worry or doubt is, at its core, a doubting of God’s sovereignty. Even if it’s about our own weaknesses. For, at heart, this is doubting God’s ability to overcome and work in, through, and in spite of our weaknesses. I came across a verse today that echoed the previous evening’s revelation: “The Lord said, ‘My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness.’ So I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) So, in response, my special boast? I stink at making decisions. I am by nature a chronic, possibly even obsessive/compulsive analyzer, which causes me to fret and tense, and yearn to extract the issue from my brain and stick it on a bedpost like an old piece of chewed-up gum, hoping beyond hope that after it’s stuck there a while, when I consider returning it to its chewer, it will have lost all appeal. I guess God’s grace revealed in my life would be a picture of me resting in the knowledge of His perfect plan…unconcerned about when and how He would reveal it, confident that He would make sure I “got it” before He asked me to carry it out. As I am powerless to make this happen, desperate and chronically flawed, in my weakness I plead for God’s sufficient grace. Again and again and again and again…