This summer I have been living at home and working in an 8-5 internship. Although it doesn’t seem to compare to many of my friends’ summers of travelling abroad, working at camps, or doing other cool things that fill my instagram daily and shamefully make me jealous here and there, I know that this is where God has placed me for the time being.

It’s not all bad. I’ve gotten to reconnect with high school friends who are back in Houston and spend time at the lake with family and friends on some weekends. But for the most part, it has been kind of a lonely summer; however I mean that in the best way possible. It’s been the best thing for me.

The quietness in the back corner of my office, the lunch breaks where I often eat alone, the 30 minute commutes to and from work, and the many times in my room in the evenings have allowed God to have me all to himself. That’s something that I don’t allow God to do often enough during the school year when I’m surrounded by friends and things to do 24/7. Towards the end of last semester I became very aware that I was scheduling God around my plans and my time when I should have been scheduling everything else around God and my time with him. I knew I needed to change that, but I didn’t want to. I mean I wanted to, but I didn’t want to have to sacrifice or change anything.

Thankfully God took control and made it impossible to escape Him. He has become my best friend. He is my go-to companion. He’s the one I talk to now on my drives to work. He’s the one who accompanies me to lunch  each day through reading his word and books that have reshaped my view of who my Father is. God has been teaching me so much this summer, and it’s only made me want to know more. It’s only made me feel like I have less answers than before. I’m more perplexed by God than ever, but its a good feeling. The more I know, the more I want to know, and the more I fall in love with my Father and savior.

I thought I had a good grasp on who God was. I thought I understood wisdom. I thought I understood the Holy Spirit. But he’s teaching me that He is so much bigger than I can ever try to fathom. He will not be confined to any box I try to put him in. He is infinite and his ways are limitless. He knows no boundaries.

I’ve learned to always go to scripture above anything else when searching for truth, but his word isn’t all the truth. He will not be confined to the box of scripture that I try to put Him in. For example, I have been learning a lot about physical healing and the different ways in which God heals. But God isn’t confined to healing only in the ways that the Bible talks about. John 21:25 even says “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”  He has the power and authority to heal in whatever way he pleases-whether it is in a single instance through a person who has been given the gift of healing, or through a long process of chemotherapy and thousands of prayers over one person who has life-threatening cancer. In the Bible, Jesus sometimes healed someone because of their faith or sometimes because of their friends’ faith, or even if someone had no faith at all. We don’t get to decide what God can or can’t do or even what God will do or how he will do it. Who am I to decide the ways in which God moves and tell someone else “No, I don’t think God heals that way”?

I would love to share with you everything that God has been teaching me this summer, but I don’t think that’s the point of this post. I just want to encourage you to seek after God and his truth. There is incomparable joy in knowing God intimately. We won’t ever know all the answers, but we’ll never know what we could know if we don’t seek after it. It doesn’t matter where you are this summer, whether you are travelling the world and seeing all of God’s creation or sitting in an office every day like me. I’ve learned God can speak to you and draw you to him anywhere, anytime if you just allow him; if you just open up his word. I never would have thought that I would have fallen so in love with Jesus in the situation that I am in this summer-doing the same mundane things every day. But  once again, who am I to decide the ways in which God works? God doesn’t need any crazy, awe-inspiring experiences to draw us to himself. Yes, sometimes he uses those experiences, but sometimes he uses an 8-5 internship and a quiet summer.

Psalm 16:11 is a verse that I have written on a sticky note next to my computer at work, and I have never found it more true than this summer. It says “You will make known to me the path of life; In your presence if fullness of joy; in your right hand there are pleasures forever.”

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7