With an unsettled, grieving heart, I meandered up a familiar hill dotted with traffic lights that turned my hurry inside out every time I had to brake. I had journeyed this same road home thousands of times, the pull to return to familiarity and move on to the next thing nearly irresistible. But, just as I was picking up speed, God interrupted with this: 

“Look at all the space for me to work!” 

I felt His excitement, His gratitude. For letting me let Him do what only He can do. The reassurance that this is exactly how God wants to work in my life, in the gap between what is and what could be. 

That particular day, my heartache was over a relationship that I desperately wanted to be different. For years, I had tried to connect more deeply, laugh more authentically, and relax more fully in the friendship, but it kept leaving me heavy with angst. 

Halfway up that well-known, winding incline toward the comfortable space of home, my anguish softened into hope because of God’s desire to help me. In those moments, I didn’t ask God to do anything, but He enthusiastically offered. It was as if, in the space of my pain, He found the perfect job for himself and couldn’t wait to get started. 

Reliance. Sometimes it is the work of grasping the truth that God wants to work in the spaces that disturb, confound, and wreck us. He does not linger far away, waiting for us to ask in the right ways or to surrender at the perfect time. Reliance can be God coming to us, seeing the gaps in our relationships, dreams, and ministries, and excitedly–even gratefully–saying, “Look at all the space for me to work!”