If you know me, you know I’m not a patient person. Once I make a plan for something, I want to hurry up and get it done. I have a list and want to check things off it. Since sophomore year I’ve planned on going to University of Northern Iowa after I graduate, studying criminology, becoming a police officer, and moving to Colorado. This was my plan, and I have been rushing through high school ever since to just get it completed and then move onto the next plan. But now my plan has changed. Going to college isn’t the next step anymore, going on the Race is. And I just want to hurry up and leave already.
I made this decision in late June, and since then I’ve been counting down the days until I can leave for the Race. High school seems pointless, as does practically everything else I do. Helping out at church has really been the only place I feel like I can make a difference. When I was on a mission trip to Uganda this summer, I felt like I had a purpose with everything I did. Everyday had a plan, and everyday we were helping people. It filled me with joy, just knowing I was positively impacting someone’s life each day by sharing God’s Word. And then I came back home, where it felt like I wasn’t needed.
This mindset caused me to be in a slump for a while. If there’s no purpose to what I do, why do anything at all? How am I supposed to survive the next year if there’s only two days a week that I feel satisfied with what I did that day?
But then I realized something. Correction: I prayed and God answered. There’s plenty of need in America. Plenty of need in Iowa. Even in my school. I don’t need to be in a foreign, impoverished country to make a difference. Obviously there’s not as much of a material need in my city, but there’s still people who need to hear God’s Word. Probably even more so here than in some places.
And so I remind myself of this whenever I start feeling down or useless. I can help people here. I don’t need to be on a mission trip to tell people about God. I can invite people to church, I can volunteer, I can live everyday through Him. I can’t spend all my time counting down and waiting for the future. I need to live in the present and fulfill the purpose that God has for me.
