If you think God can't use random things in your life to teach you a lesson, then you are missing out. In fact, if you think God can't use random household appliances to teach you about His awesome self, then you are in the same boat I was in before today. Insert the garbage disposal. I was cleaning this dishes this morning, followed by bottles, then baby food jars. I had dumped some leftovers down in the garbage disposal, ran the water over the drain, and flipped the switch. Then, it happened. I heard the loudest, most glass shattering noise ever. "What the heck was that?!" I exclaimed aloud. I turned the disposal off and stuck my hand in the drain. What I pulled out was not any good. Among the food I pulled out was little pieces of broken glass. One of the baby food jars had fallen in the drain without me knowing....and the garbage disposal had shredded it to a million pieces. Ughhhh. "Are you kidding me?" I said to myself. I couldn't believe it.
For the next 20-30 minutes, I pulled little pieces of glass out of the garbage disposal, one by one. Very annoying. When I thought I got all the pieces out, I ran the water over the drain and flipped the switch. I stood and stared like a deer in headlights as I heard my garbage disposal slowly die. It hummed just a little before it completely gave out. When I flipped the switch on and off, I heard nothing. Then, I smelled something burning. I opened the cabinet underneath the sink where the disposal was and I smelled the burning odor even stronger. I concluded at that point that my disposal had died.
I continued washing one of Caleb's bottles and thought about how much a new disposal would cost. How in the world were we going to pay for that?! I had priced them before when I thought the disposal broke last year.
As I continued to wash the bottle, I prayed. I told God my problem. In the midst of my prayer, I felt like I should lay hands on my disposal and pray for it. Yes, that sounds completely nuts and I felt absolutely retarded doing it, but when I finished washing the bottle, I opened the cabinet, knelt down, laid hands on the disposal, and believed with all my might that it would be fixed. I really felt that it would be fixed. I could feel the power of God move threw me as I prayed. I had the faith, so when I stood up and flipped the switch and it didn't work, I was a little confused. "But God, I REALLY believed You'd fix it for me," I thought. This wasn't a matter of not having the faith...at least thats what I felt. "God, you said faith of a mustard seed.." Why wasn't my disposal fixed?!
Honestly, at that point, I was disappointed, but I really believed my disposal would be fixed somehow. I didn't feel like we were going to have to get a new one. So, I sat down on the couch, opened the laptop, and just let God speak to me. I didn't receive a burning bush or have any weird visitations from some Jesus look a-like apparition, but I had this gut instinct to Google how to fix a disposal. It's no surprise that the first link I clicked on showed me, step by step, how to check my disposal before calling a plumber and wasting money. At first, I was hesitant. I am not Mrs. Fixit. In fact, any time Ive tried to fix something, I broke it even more. I talked to John and sent him the link. I told him he could try what the website suggested when he got home. About an hour later I looked at the website again. It looked fairly simple so I figured I'd give it a try. To make a long story short and to get to the point of this blog, within 20 minutes, my disposal was working again!
What did God teach me through all of this? Well, when I laid hands on the disposal, I expected God to magically fix my disposal. I have no doubt God could have done that, but that's what I EXPECTED Him to do. God revealed to me, that when I expect Him to do something a certain way, He will usually do the opposite. We are not to try and figure God out. In a weird way, God was reminding me that I will never figure Him out, no matter how hard I try. He will work His mighty powers the way He wants to, not the way I expect Him to. The sad thing is, God had showed me this before when I expected Him to work in a certain way. Will He always do the exact opposite of what we expect? Maybe not, but He will work in any way He wants. My guess is, if you are like me and think you can figure out God, then He will work in the opposite way you expect. :)
So did God fix my disposal? Well, yes. I believe He gave me the idea to look online and He made it so I clicked on the correct link. Some people would call it a coincidence, but I call it God.
What amazes me is that God knew my disposal was going to fail and He orchestrated things to teach me a lesson.
Just Awesome. :)
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