Once God Provides, Why Do We Keep Looking?

the story I've been waiting months to tell

I’m a shopper. I like looking for the next best thing. I can’t just go to the store for a shirt and buy the first shirt I like and take it home. I have to look for four or five other shirts I like, try them on, then pick my favorite or favorites. I like options. They make me feel responsible. Like I didn't miss something obvious. Like if the decision turns out badly, at least I can say I really looked.

The trouble is, I’ve taken that sensibility and applied it to prayer.

It goes like this: I ask God for something. He provides, and then I say, “Well, that might be it, but I’ll keep looking in case You want to give me something better than your first answer.” It’s a nasty little habit created by my shopping addiction.

So when we moved to Wisconsin, and I was looking for a PT, I determined to take the most obvious one I could find and not search reviews or gather recommendations. Crazy right? Only if you think my future depends more on my research than on God's providence.

So I walked out of my house one morning, determined to discover my next PT, and within one minute of leaving my house, I saw a sign for a PT office and immediately knew I didn’t need to look any further.

I realize this is kind of like “eenie meenie miney moe,” but what better way to trust God with the outcomes than asking Him for something and then taking it without question when He shows it to you?

I wasn’t pretending the clinic across the street had magically become the best physical therapy office in Wisconsin. I just decided that if I’d asked God to provide and the answer was sitting a one-minute walk from my front door, I wasn’t going to spend the next three days acting like it all depended on my research skills.

Within weeks, I realized this wasn't just an answer to prayer. It was one of those gifts from God that turns out to be much bigger than the thing you originally asked for. I'd gone looking for a physical therapist. Instead, I found someone who would change the way I thought about pain, fear, and eventually even my faith. And within months, I was so excited about the connection between the brain and the body, neuroscience and psychology, that I asked Dr. Sam if he ever thought of writing a book because I wanted to write it with him. And he said, “Yes!”

So, I dove headfirst into pain management and the brain/body connection. I spent months buried in neuroscience research.

And somewhere between highlighting journal articles and arguing with Sam over chapter ten, I kept running into the same idea from different angles.

At first, I thought, “This explains pain.” Then I started thinking, “Wait...this explains anxiety too, and insomnia, and the way we make decisions, and the way we trust, and even the way we pray!”

I realized I was living life like I was a prey animal, not a child of God. My brain was obsessed with safety while God was far more interested in trust.

That’s the rabbit hole I’ve been traveling through for the last eight months: one conversation after another with Sam that usually ended with one of us saying, “Wait...that explains so much.”

I used to think pain and anxiety were the problem, but they weren’t; they were the clues.

If you’ve ever wondered why your body or mind won’t stop acting like you’re under threat, that’s the conversation we’ve been having for the last two years and the conversation we've spent the last eight months turning into a book.

So that’s why I’ve been less than present lately. Research and writing.

This little studio is where the book has found its voice. It’s where Sam and I argued over chapters, recorded podcasts, laughed through retakes, and somehow managed to turn all our conversations into one book.

Those microphones have heard more discussions about overprotective pain than I can count. And next week you’ll finally get to hear some of those conversations yourself.

The book and podcast both go live on August 4! All because I prayed for a physical therapist. I wasn’t even looking for a co-author. I just wanted a PT. Good thing I stopped shopping when I did.