You’ve racked your brain trying to think of a solution, and despite your brilliance, there is none. No way out. No hope.

Sigh.

Cry.

“What are we gonna do?” you asked.

Oh, I’ve been there. I’ve struggled so hard to find a way through a problem that my head literally hurt. And at that point, exhausted and frustrated, I gave up and prayed, “God, I can’t do this. I cannot see my way through this. You have to. I quit.”

I didn’t quit my faith. I stopped trying to figure out the solution.

God probably said, “Hallelujah!”

Angel choirs sang a harmonic run, “Ah…..”

“We live by faith not by sight.” (2 Cor. 5:7)

I remember it so well. I was sitting at lunch with my family. We had just moved to Wilmington, and earlier that day we were enrolling our kids into their new schools when my cell phone rang. My sister’s voice was on the other end with the unexpected. This was not in the moving plans.

“Mom is dying. The nursing home called. They’ve given her 48 hours.”

Mom had fought Alzheimer’s for seven years.

When the phone call ended, my mind started running a mile a minute trying to orchestrate the details. I knew I couldn’t fly home in time to say goodbye, but how was I going to get my family to Oklahoma for her funeral when my husband just started a new job, the kids new schools? We were living in the Value Place with two cats that weren’t supposed to be there! What was I going to do? How could this work out?

When I gave up trying to orchestrate the details..when I said, “I give up!” God could finally tell me His answer. It was a good one.

As I ate my hamburger and sipped my cola, the epiphany came. “Have the funeral on Sunday.”

I hadn’t thought of that!

Brilliant. Strange. Who has a funeral on Sunday? But Brilliant.

How many times do I try to live by sight?

[tweetability]How often does my vision get in the way of God’s solutions?[/tweetability]

[tweetability]He can see beyond eternity. God’s answers have no boundaries.[/tweetability]

[tweetability]God thinks outside the box.[/tweetability]

One of my favorite Bible stories is the story of Hagar in the desert.

Due to Sarah’s demands, Abraham was forced to send Hagar and Ishmael away. He broken-heartedly sent them into the desert with only a skin of water and some food.

Eventually, the water was gone. It was hot. They were tired. Hagar couldn’t watch her son suffer and die in the desert, so she sat him under a bush, and she sat nearby. She began to cry. She could not see any hope.

But God showed up.

And the Bible says, “Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.” (Genesis 21:19).

The Bible doesn’t say that God magically put the well there or dug it quickly for her.

It was already there.

I believe her desperation blinded her to its presence.

What problem are you desperately trying to fix or find a solution?

Live by faith.

Not by sight.

God has the answer.

With Joy,