When I last posted, I mentioned that a move might be coming soon. Well, that move has now happened! I’m not settled in yet, but that will come with time.

In truth, I am living in this new city much sooner than I anticipated. When I decided to start looking for housing options and opportunities here to see what doors God might open, I figured it would be at least a couple of months before I found anything. Instead, the house I’ve moved into was the first and only place I looked at during my visit to the city in July.

Less than a month after I viewed the house, I was moving in. As the pieces came together, I was amazed at how quickly everything happened. It felt like a “suddenly”, one of those moments where God shows up and works everything out in an instant. But as I’ve thought about how quickly it all happened, I’ve realized that this “suddenly” has been in the works for years.

I first walked through this city and across this bridge at Christmastime 2016 (photo on the left). In 2017, I spent time here on a couple of different occasions and seeds were planted that would grow into a love for this place and desire to live and work here. In 2018, as I worked through having to leave Ireland and prayed about opportunities to move back to the land I love so much, the thoughts of this place grew, and I started working toward moving here during that summer.

Here I am, two years later, walking through a door that seems to have opened suddenly and marveling at the journey that brought me here. I don’t know what lies in store here in this city. I don’t know what ministry opportunities, relationships, joys, tears, challenges and growth await. But I know that God has been at work in this place and in me during the long years leading to this “suddenly”. I didn’t always see what He was up to, but I am starting to see the fruit of some of His work, and I can’t wait to watch more unfold in the months and years to come.

There are other things I feel like God has promised me. In some cases, I sense He has said the promises will happen soon or suddenly. I often struggle to hang onto faith for those dreams, those “suddenlies” He has hinted at. It looks like nothing is happening, as though God is idle with regard to those things. And yet, in moments like this, when a long awaited “suddenly” appears, the curtain is pulled back, and I see how God has been working behind the scenes all along. I’m reminded that just because it was outside my view, doesn’t mean He wasn’t moving things into place to bring about the promises I’d nearly given up on.

What are you trusting God for? Is there something you’ve believed for, been promised, and yet see no evidence of? Have faith, my friends. “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see” (Heb. 11:1). You never know when the curtain will be drawn, and a whole new world of promise and fulfillment will suddenly appear.