I’ll admit it, I sort of dread small talk. Conversations lacking in depth and purpose, getting about as meaningful as what the weather is looking like next week aren’t what I would consider my favorite. Don’t get me wrong; I love meeting people, getting to know them, goofing around, catching a glimpse of their story. I see the vitality of understanding the little things about a person just as much as the big. I know that knowing a person’s favorite color, food, and TV show can be significant. I just wish we could fast forward past the awkward “getting to know each other” phase and be friends already. Is that too much to ask? So when I got to college, I, along with all of my peers, trudged through this uncomfortable process of feeling out friend groups, sorting through formalities. When the question of my major ever surfaced, my heart sank a little as the reality that I had no idea what I actually wanted my major to be came to the forefront. I didn’t even know what I liked or where I saw myself ending up, so my guess was about as good as theirs. Needless to say, I changed my major a time or two and didn’t have any clear-cut idea until just last year.
Now that I am in the thick of my senior year, essentially anyone and everyone slate me against another difficult question; what are my plans for life after graduation? My fellow college seniors, or any twenty-something year old for that matter (perhaps in a different context), can validate my claim. Trust me, it comes up a lot. When asked, much like the freshman year major search saga, I begin to feel at a loss for words. I have no clue. Usually, I muster up enough courage to explain the World Race and my journey over the next year, but past that, I cannot even begin to speculate.
Man, to be honest, that is a scary thought. The rest of my life hangs in limbo as I try to sort through what may or may not be for me. After facing this question for a few weeks now, I’ve had some time for self-reflection (one of my favorite things to do!). In my time with The Lord, He has faithfully revealed to me that I have a fear of not knowing. Looking back over the last few years of college, I notice an overarching trend; I feel the need to know and to do. I have plunged into this frantic fury to get it together already. I have to take this class, formulate this relationship with this person, and land this internship, all for the end goal of “figuring out my life”. Despite my best effort, I sit here writing this blog, as a senior, just as clueless as to what the rest of my life will shape up to be than I was when I was a freshman. But, through The Lord’s provision and unbelievable patience, I am coming to realize that it’s all a lie.
The biggest lie I ever believed in college is that I have to have everything figured out. One tip I have learned is the best thing to do with a lie is to replace it with the truth. The truth is Jesus never had that qualification for His disciples. He never demanded for His followers to have some exceptional talent or knowledge, to be good enough, strong enough, or smart enough. It was never about their performance and always about His faithfulness. My mind races to the passage in John 13 when Jesus is washing His disciples’ feet. They’re sort of dumbfounded. Why in the world would the Savior of the universe want to wash my nasty feet? But then He says, “what I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand” (v. 7). That’s the truth. We don’t have to understand what He’s doing, but later, although perhaps not on this side of heaven, we will. We don’t have to be able to explain what He’s up to, but we do have to trust that what He’s up to is trustworthy, true, and good.
What I see in part, God sees in whole. I do not entirely know what He is doing in my life. But that’s the beauty of it; I don’t have to know. All I have to do is trust Him and know that He will take care of me. Jesus beautifully proclaims in Matthew 6:26, “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Indeed, I am more valuable. Jesus will feed me. He will sustain me. Where the Spirit of The Lord is, there is freedom (2 Cor. 3:17). Because i have a relationship with Jesus, I have His Spirit. Because I have His Spirit, I have freedom, freedom to not know, and freedom to trust. Let me tell you, living in that freedom is infinitely better than white-knuckling my way through life, trying to figure it all out. I can let myself go and be reassured that I am following the God of the universe where He leads. Although I may not know where I am going, I know that God is before me. He is faithful (1 Cor. 1:9), I am His workmanship (Eph. 2:10), and the rest doesn’t really matter.
To be honest, I’m not sure of most things in life these days. Frankly, I don’t even know what I’m going to have for dinner tonight. I don’t know what my experience on the World Race will be like. I don’t know what the rest of my life will be like. I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’m going, who I’ll meet, or what my plan is once I get there. All I know really is that God is good, He’s faithful, and He loves the crap out of me. But that’s enough.
“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand” — Proverbs 19:21
