I don’t know where I am going:

I have recently been very confused and feel like I have been led astray.  Anyone ever feel like that?  If you haven’t, good for you.  Maybe you have lived your whole life being willing to go with whatever life throws at you.  I wish that would be me.  I wish that I cared more about being willing to go with whatever the Lord wanted for me.  However, I am often here wondering what is next.  Lately, I have been struggling to understand my future.  I love my teaching job, but I just don’t know how long I will be in this teaching position.  This has gotten me questioning the Lord, so I knew that I had to go right into writing this blog post.  

When I was a kid, I had definitely made a timeline for myself.  We all do, don’t we.  We can all make plans and dreams that are very good, but at the same time can if we are not careful, close us off from other things that are in the world.  When I was a kid, my first dream was to be a singer.  I was going to be a huge pop star, and I was going to have a million fans.  Then maybe I would even become a movie star and be in blockbuster films.  (Granted, I probably really didn’t know the term, blockbuster when I was a kid).  When I grew older and was in high school, I dreamed of writing books.  (Ok, that is definitely still there for me to this day. )  I was originally going to go to college to study journalism, however, I would change my mind by the time I got to college and instead study education.  While I was in college studying to become a teacher, there was also a growing passion in me for anti-human trafficking work. If you have read a lot of my blogs or know me personally, you will know that is still a deep passion for me.  I still have some of those dreams I had while I was growing up, but they are always changing which is a good testament that I should not be the one that is in charge of my destiny, at least not fully.  

A very classic verse of knowing and trusting in God’s perfect plan is Jeremiah 29:11.  That verse says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you’ Declares the Lord.  ‘Plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.;’” If you have ever felt as though God’s plan is not going the exact place you want, God has a better plan than even you could plan.  I know that it is something that I have said in my blogs many times, and there are many other places where this has been written and spoken of, but it is always a good reminder.   We all have a plan for our lives, and then it may end up not being the way we originally expected.  It can be so painful to watch the lives that we believe that we want pass us by.  

A hymn that I have discovered recently through singing in church is called, “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.”  This is a great hymn to listen to as well as to sing, especially when you feel you need to trust more in God.  The chorus goes something like,“Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er; Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! Oh, for grace to trust Him more!”  I don’t always want to trust God.  It is definitely hard to trust God more than to trust myself.  The best part is that God gives us more and more grace in order to trust him more and more, so even when there are moments you believe that you can’t trust God, his Holy Spirit and the grace that is living amongst us will help us to trust him.  It does not have to be solely on our own. 

One other song that is important to look at in regards to giving God control is the song of “Control” by Tenth Avenue North.  This song is a great example of a surrendering song.  The chorus line goes something like this, “God You don’t need me, But somehow You want me, Oh, how You love me, Somehow that frees me, To open my hands up, And give You control, I give, You control.”  How powerful is that.  The Lord doesn’t need us at all.  He can do everything he could ever want without our presence, but he chooses to love us and care for us anyway.  Therefore because he chooses to love us, the only thing that we should be focused on is giving him the complete love and service that he is owed back to him.  

I don’t know God’s plan. I don’t know if he will have me live in a small town in Iowa forever, or if he will have me be a missionary in Asia.  I can’t tell you if he will have me get married, or if he will have me be single for the rest of my life.  I can’t tell you anything of what my future holds, except for one thing and that is that God loves me.  While I have been struggling to understand what the future holds and while I am trying to figure out who I am, I was reminded that I didn’t need to have that all figured out if I had someone out there for me.  Ultimately my main future is spending eternity with him, and I guess that is the only one that matters.  If any of you have felt this way recently, I challenge you to remember that the time here is very short, the eternity is what we need to look to.