With all of the excitement and nervousness, about going on this gap year, to the true joy and sadness that I have felt as I graduate I have been really struggling with something. I have been struggling to balance looking forward towards the world race and still “being where my feet are”.
One of my best friends, explained this saying to me one morning at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting and it really changed my mindset on so many things. So many people live in past moments, wishing they could have things back and honestly, I can’t say that I don’t ever do this. There are many a times that I wish I was back at camp surrounded by believers 24/7, or in Disney living my best life with my best friends. But I have to remind myself that, those were amazing moments that were created into unforgettable MEMORIES. I can’t forgo living in the moment of where I am right now.
I’ve recently been struggling with wishing for the future and putting my focus on things that have not occurred yet, which is no better than wanting to live in the past. I’ve been struggling with this since January, when I found out that I was accepted to the World Race Gap Year. I found out about a week before midterms, and let me tell you, I struggled so hard with motivation that week. I knew I needed to study so I could get exempt from finals but I genuinely just didn’t care because I was so focused on the race. And it wasn’t bad that I was excited for the race, but at the time it was hindering what I needed to be focusing on in the moment.
I remember I was studying in our office room, where we have huge world map, and I kept looking back at it, as I was trying to study how to find the z-score for AP stat and I couldn’t help but think that this information would be 100% completely useless in the future, and I just wanted to go on adventures in the world, waking up each and everyday with my only goal to be to glorify God with everything in my being. I eventually gave up on studying because I was so incredibly fixated on what the future held and I completely dismissed what was going on in my present life.
I think the issue with focusing on the past and future is that we begin to think that God can’t use us right where we are. And it is crazy that this though crosses our mind because, God has placed us in every situation for a reason. He has placed me in my hometown for a reason, so that I can reach certain people in my community. It all comes down to the fact that God has a plan. He placed me where I was at that time in the exact moment that he wanted me there. He wants me where I am right now, and wherever I end up in the future it will be because he chose that place for me. Though we may reminisce and wish we were other places, when we do this to an extreme it is almost has if we are disrespecting God and his plan for our lives. Saying that we don’t want to be used where he so clearly wants to use us in that moment.
“To be where you feet are” doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy looking through old pictures, or that you can’t be excited for what God has in store in the future for you. It just means that you can’t let the past and the future take up more of you attention, energy, and focus than the present. I am not exactly someone to say, “live in the moment” because I have found that it typically leads people to make dumb decisions that they later regret because they didn’t think them through. However, I do think that we should live in the moment, but not be totally oblivious to the other things going on around us. I’ve realized that it is so important for me to wake up each day and ask God “what do you have for me today, Lord?” or “how are you going to use me today?” and when I ask these questions I begin to look for opportunities in my school and community of where God can use me. My eyes are opened to what is going on. I begin to be where my feet are.
