Assurance

Today, with Dad's departure from Singapore's Changi airport, marked the final action in closing out an incredible experience.  Three of us journeyed from the Europe, Tennessee, and Singapore to India.  We experienced some of the best and worst that India offers without discrimination.  We enjoyed incredible food, often far too much of it!  We rediscovered the wonder and beauty of extended family.  In hindsight, I am not sure what I expected.  I think that this was a good thing.  Despite my need to control, everything worked out.  Even though I find myself constantly looking for those indicators that provide assurance and comfort that my steps are the right one, I survived without any idea if things would actually work out.  Things did worked.  Truth did prevailed.  I am changed for the better because of the experience.
I find myself revelling in the comfort that Singapore provides.  Things work.  It is easy to get things done, if only moving from point A to B.  Predictability, expectations, and results are often peacefully within our reach.  In the quietness of a new dawn, I wonder if my comfort and assurance is based on the wrong things.  Perhaps my faith rests on what I can see and touch instead of something truly greater than what I can imagine.
I look at those before me and I find a very different model.  When the followers of Christ faced an uncertain future, they took decisions and walk into the unknown.  The process was, at times, blindingly simple.  “They nominated two: Joseph Barsabbas, nicknamed Justus, and Matthias.  Then they prayed, 'You, O God, know every one of us inside and out.  Make plain which of these two men you choose to take the place in this ministry and leadership that Judas threw away in order to go his own way.'  They then drew straws.  Matthias won and was counted in with the eleven apostles.”  (Acts 1.23-26)
Their model can be ours today.  God is actively engaged in our lives.  Letting the beauty and wonder unfold is a wonderful way for us to live.