God knows what He's doing.

You should keep that box. It’s a good size. You might need it.

This thought came to me a few months ago as I was unboxing some things I’d received for Christmas. A Ninja Kitchen System, a Crockpot – you know, things that come in larger, more sturdy boxes. Normally, a thought like this would stem from a previous hoarder/scarcity mentality, where I believed I needed to keep potentially useful things just in case. But I have since realized that keeping things “just in case” is often just another way I am creating my own backup plan in case God doesn’t provide. (Yikes.) On this day, though, my mind went more in the direction of: perhaps you might need to pack these things up again.

Um. For what?

A few days later, I was unboxing another package from Amazon when the same thought popped up again, but instead of thinking I’d need the box to repack what I’d just received, it was a more general thought about that box being a good size for packing.

Okay, but. I’m not moving. I have no plans to move. Why would I need packing boxes?

I let the boxes sit empty in my living room for a few days while I mulled over the idea. And by “mulled over,” I mean I gave them the side-eye every time I walked past them as I came and went from my apartment each day. What would I need packing boxes for? I kept wondering.

Here’s the thing. I know I’ve strung all the relevant details together in a few paragraphs here, but at the time, I didn’t think about it like a series of events. The thoughts about potentially needing boxes to pack my things in felt small, random, and unimportant. Ultimately, I decided to get rid of them as a way of deciding to ignore it. After all, in the brief moments I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with a single logical reason why keeping them “just in case” would make any sense or be worth the added clutter.

Later that same day, as I walked up to my friend’s house, I noticed a stack of boxes leaning up against the railing on her porch. After chatting for a few minutes, my friend asked if the boxes were still on her porch.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I noticed those.”

“They’re such good boxes! I always feel weird getting rid of good boxes like that.”

Oh, I thought to myself. Maybe I just feel weird getting rid of good boxes?

“I let my neighbors know that they were free for the taking,” she went on. “I’m surprised they’re still there. I feel like people are always looking for free boxes.”

I paused. And then I shared with her a lot of the things I just typed out, about the thoughts that kept coming to me – and how earlier that day I had just gotten rid of my boxes. Part of me felt like I was just agreeing with her, and part of me felt like it was a confession. It does feel weird to get rid of good boxes! But it didn’t feel weird for me in the same way it felt weird for her, and I didn’t know it until she pointed it out.

“Maybe God is telling you to start packing,” she said.

I’m sorry. What? That is what you got from what I just said?

She went on to share a story about some other friends and being packed – ready to receive what God has next, especially if it happens fast. She circled back around to her original point: Maybe that’s God and you should just listen.

I stared at her. Because I knew, in that moment, that she had heard the truth in the midst of my random, messy thoughts – the truth I couldn’t recognize (or, actually, chose to ignore) – and called it out. There was nothing else to say except, “I think I’m gonna need to take those boxes that are out on your porch.”

And that’s the story of why almost all of my belongings are packed in boxes that are just sitting, stacked along the walls of my bedroom. Normally I don’t like to publicly share specific details of the in-between as they’re still unfolding because, as Pastor Mike Todd always points out, it’s called crazy faith for a reason. It seems crazy! Until it happens. But nothing has happened yet. I don’t even know what is happening. To be honest, I’d rather wait until I can tell the full story because my pride wants you to see my actions as faith and not crazy. But that’s the thing about faith in action – for the most part, it just feels (and seems) crazy.

As I packed up my books, I found a scrap of paper I’d been using as a bookmark. Coincidentally (or not), I found it in the pages of Pastor Mike Todd’s book, Crazy Faith.

Whatever. God knows what what He’s doing.

Finding this made me laugh out loud. Partly for the what what, and partly because I don’t remember when I wrote that – but saaame.

I’m packing my things into boxes and talking to God about it the whole way, but at the end of the day – this is the kind of surrender that faith is. Sometimes, it’s just throwing up my hands, admitting that I don’t (and can’t) know what’s happening, but He does. And that’s enough.