Snyders Take (ALL) the Adventures that Come to Them

As most of you know, we received the name of our next assignment in late November. What has followed has brought along more sanctification than this girl ever prayed for.

Want to join me for a quick overview of said sanctification? Ok. Come along.

When we filled out our “dream sheet”—a list of assignments we’d love to take—this past summer, we went all in on overseas options. Anything outside the continental U.S. made the cut. Florida has been lovely in many ways, but I’ve been itching for another Alaska- or Türkiye-sized adventure. For me, that kind of experience is best found across the ocean—and Paul’s love for me is as big as the globe and he’s willing to go anywhere.

When he questioned me about the dozen or so potential stateside bases listed, I felt mostly indifferent.

“If they keep us in the U.S.,” I told Paul, “I don’t really have a strong opinion.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I’m serious! I could probably find a way to be happy enough at any of them. Well…except (squints at the list) Columbus, Mississippi,” I added. “I didn’t even know the Air Force had a base in that area.”

Cue shudder.

“But why would they ever send us there?”

As anyone with a basic understanding of irony knows, that is exactly the assignment that the Air Force picked for us. Mississippi.

(Now, before anyone with a deep and abiding love for Mississippi comes for me, note this caveat. I have nothing against small, sleepy country towns…when they’re inhabited by someone else. Sounds very idyllic…if you’re not me. Relaxing if you love hunting, fishing, football, or long Sunday drives through open fields. There are lots of people who long for country roads to take them home. But not me. I wanted the autobahn. Sigh.)

What made this harder was hope. Paul actually received a few overseas bids, commanders who looked at his resume and said, we want that guy. Living in Europe has been a dream of mine since I was a teenager, and for a moment, it felt possible. But still. I didn’t run off and sell the furniture and pack up the house. I maintained my calm and tried to be spiritually mature about it. In other words, I promised God I would be content with anything, overseas would be awesome but I’d be content whatever he chose.

Well, almost whatever.

I mean, if I told God “yes” to thirty-nine out of the forty national and global options, that feels generous, right?

Apparently not. Never underestimate God’s loving decision to chip away at the things we deem non-negotiables. Why? (And this is called “foreshadowing” in the literary world) Because another word for a personal non-negotiable is “idol.”

So when I heard the news that not only was the overseas door closed, but that we were being sent to the one assignment I had openly decried, well. I didn’t react well. Ask Paul. Or my parents. Or my sister. Or the friends who received a flood of upset texts. If you’d been a fly on the wall of my car during that hour-long commute after Paul called (strategically, on his part, to give time to process the news before arriving at home,) you would’ve seen anger and disbelief. I mean, how dare he. How dare God ignore my very generous offer to live literally anywhere but Mississippi?

A very steamed up and slightly hyperbolic Liz arrived home (“Quit the Air Force! Tell them no!! Send a very strongly-worded email!!!”) and she was no more spiritually in control then when Paul dropped the news in my lap. I could not reconcile myself to the possibility that this plan, this three-year assignment, lay within God’s plan for me.

So there was a party after we got the news—but not the celebratory kind. It was an epic pity party, and I was both host and guest of honor.

After a few weeks I was still disappointed, (sadly, investigating the state didn’t make me  any more excited about moving there)—but I was no longer fuming at God, or the Air Force.  Rather, I’d realized that the situation had exposed an uncomfortable personal truth: knowing the right answers and believing them are not the same thing.

Apparently, it was a lesson I needed to learn again. Let me tell you how that went.

To begin, I know how faith works. I was raised steeped in Christian culture. I know the verses and the theology. I sing the songs and lift my hands in a visual symbol of my surrender to God. Only it’s far easier to raise my hands “in faith” on a Sunday morning when my plans remain unthreatened than on the Sunday after God has gone scorched-earth on my desires for the future. Surrender is a compelling and beautiful concept, right up until it must be put into practice.

But faith, that act of truly surrendering to God, really only moves from being known in the head to becoming real and actualized in the heart when self-determined non-negotiables start getting negotiated. Looking back at my (fiery, negative, extremely over the top) reaction to the unravelling of my plan reminded me that knowing and believing are two different soul-deep attitudes.

Different enough, apparently, for idols to slip into a heart that still insists it worships God.

So. I asked myself, “what should I do, now that my life is veering hard in the opposite direction of what I want?”  I mean, faith must provide something in those moments, otherwise, why have it? Why not just trust myself and do what I think is best? Why believe in an all-powerful God if I won’t allow that he might chart my life’s road trip—including routes I would never choose? What is keeping me from fully him?  It’s those darn, faith-stealing idols and all their false promises.

But God, in his persistent kindness, has a way of placing his finger directly on those things which invade my heart and sit on its throne. He sees the idols, and he isn’t content to leave them there. Sometime he simply, compassionately removes them. No three-year European adventure for Liz, I’m afraid. And what does Liz think about that?

Liz said (sighed), “ok, God. You do what is best.”

I’m amazed to say that from that moment God began ministering to my heart and helping me truly trust him—sometimes in ways that were understandable, and sometimes with utterly surprising means…

First, God used a sermon by Tim Keller to remind me that HE the only entity which can provide true joy and peace.

Earth-shattering, I know.

But remember, I’m the same person whose heart had quietly started setting up idols: things I believed would fix my life and make me happy. For me, the idol of place is a strong one. If only I could live somewhere exciting—rich with history or scenery or adventure, or less that a place with a cool job, great schools, new restaurants (or at least an international airport!)—then I’d be content. If I believed hard enough, that idol promised to give me what I wanted.

But the first of the ten commandment is blunt: don’t worship or trust any other gods. Why? Because God knows that he alone can actually carry the weight of our true need. Everything else in the world trumpets big promises, but eventually the tune goes of key, the instrument fails and we realize a kind of soul-atrophy—restlessness, striving, endless dashed hopes that something earthly will finally deliver. Augustine said it best: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” 

Apologies to Augustine for not listening, but there are many days when my restless heart still searches for ultimate joy in failing things. I’ll even start to tell God how best to provide those things too me!

But when Jesus taught his followers to pray, he began with, “thy will be done.” Why? Because he knew that I’d slip into the dangerous habit of treating prayer—and really, the entire Christian life—as just a means of asking God (aka, a genie) to provide those things that I want.

When I confidently whisper, “my will be done” I elevate my understanding above God’s, and how foolish is that? Who knows me better than I know myself? God. Who knows the full arc of my life, beginning to end? Who loves me more than I love myself and sustains my very heartbeat? God. Who knows exactly what I need to become more like Jesus? And what if what I need is three years at a tiny base in the middle of northern Mississippi? Hmmm?

My answer, “Oh. Well. Now look. In this case, God, it’s fairly obvious that I know better than you do. The answer can’t possibly be Mississippi. Noooooo. Not even a chance.”

Do you know that this sounds like? It’s as emphatic as a five-year-old insisting, confidently insisting, that she knows exactly how to run her life. We’ve all seen this, and such toddleresque confidence is impressive, roughly on par with that of a forty-five-year-old woman staring at orders to move somewhere she doesn’t want to go.

And just as a loving parent directs a misguided child’s life despite their protestations, and with far more knowledge and perspective, my divine Parent does the same. Tim Keller often says that trusting God means believing that if I knew everything God knows—about my heart, my life, and my true needs—I would be making the same choice he’s making for me. I’d want to move to Mississippi. I’d beg to move to Mississippi.

But I don’t know all things. I can’t see the future. So I’m left on my knees with a simple, stubborn phrase: “Thy will be done.” Keller puts it this way, “The point of prayer is to get the heart back into its true orbit. To center on God. …If the moon would leave its true orbit, it would begin to crash and burn and hit things, and therefore if the heart leaves its true orbit, of centering everything on God, the same thing happens only spiritually and cosmically.” Am I content to push all other things out of the center of my heart and leave only God?

All other idols can fail. Trust money? A market crash shatters it. Trust relationships? Betrayal or loss destroys it. Trust power or reputation? One mistake can take it all down. Rely on anything other than God, and my spiritual stability would eventually crash.

Only God can bear the full weight of my spiritual need—and he can’t be destroyed. So when my happiness is rooted in him, it can’t be taken. When my joy comes from being loved by God, it can’t be quenched. When my identity is grounded in being his child, it can’t be ripped away. And when the divine Gardener does the pruning, the fruit that grows is real and lasting. With God, I truly have everything I need. The orbit of my life is secure when he is the center. The Apostle Paul reminds us, “I am sure that nothing can separate us from God's love—not life or death, not angels or spirits, not the present or the future, and not powers above or powers below. Nothing in all creation can separate us from God's love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!”

“So,” as my husband Paul said in his sermon, “Who else would I trust to give me a life assignment?”

But remember when I said God had sanctified me through very understandable means—and also through some utterly shocking ones?

Well, here’s the plot twist none of y’all (and certainly no one in the Snyder household) saw coming: Our orders changed.

Last week, my phone rang with another fateful phone call from my husband.

“Are you sitting down?”

I roll my eyes. He’s so dramatic. But I announce that he can proceed because I am, in fact, sitting down.

“Well good. Because guess what, we aren’t going to Mississippi anymore…we’re moving to the Netherlands.” THE NETHERLANDS.

See! It’s shocking, right?! It’s wild, and crazy, and bizarre.

To recap: after leaning hard into God’s goodness, after finding peace with a move to Mississippi, after starting to make plans for schools, work, and family time, after being amazed by the supernatural joy I experienced despite my circumstances, after typing out a very lengthy potential blog post about how I came too that supernatural joy … God does this.

And here’s the embarrassing truth—I was tempted to be cynical! To pause my trust in God’s goodness, because, as the old adage goes, “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” I found myself asking: Is this just another test? Is the thing I want being dangled in front of me only to be yanked away again? Is this a trick—designed to wring out the very last bit of hope for the things I long for?

Once again, I’m a Thomas—immediately full of disbelieving doubt, despite all I’ve just learned. Unwilling to believe something because it just. doesn’t. make. sense.

But faith must rise to meet every lie my mind tells about God. He is neither a genie in a bottle nor a petty tyrant crafting impossible tests. Instead, I returned to what I know is true: He is—and will always be—good. And if our security rests in him alone, he will continually satisfy our souls—when the fig tree does not blossom, or when it’s bursting with fruit. When the nets are empty, and when the boat nearly capsizes with the abundance. When living in a tiny southern town, or residing in a European metropolis. When orders change again, or if they stay the same.

(But ya’ll, I really hope they stay the same!)

So that's the end of the story (for now.) I know that God doesn't always do this kind of thing and so I feel some sadness for the fact that other military spouses will not get an equally awesome change of assignment. (In fact, I spent some time praying for whoever got notified about their new move to Columbus, Mississippi.) Still, I'm super excited and can't wait to explore the Netherlands. Whoo-Hoo!