This title couldn’t hold truer as I sit here just now trying to write my first blog post. I’ve made excuse after excuse about how I have too much going on or I’m too busy with work and I’ll get around to it tomorrow, but tomorrow is always a day away and never comes. Procrastination is one problem I’ve always had, it’s not that I don’t get done what I need to do I just rush through it in the eleventh hour. Ironically though procrastination is what led me to the world race and I found where God wanted me to be right now. I attended Appalachian State University for a couple of years before I came back home and started working. However, I was not happy doing so and planned to take a summer class and go back up there the following semester. Of course I procrastinated and second guessed it though and didn’t register for a summer class so I was unable to go back the following semester and I deeply regretted that decision. So then I said “okay I’m going to work hard and make the most of my time while I’m home for this year, save some money, and I’m going to take the Summer course next Summer and go back in the fall.” But yet again, I began to procrastinate and second guess it. This time however I decided to actually look at all of my options because I knew just staying at home and working would keep me unhappy and I looked back on one of my favorite quotes, “Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. When I finally took the time to sit down and look over my options I realized I had plenty of them. I could take a Summer course and return to App, I could stay home and focus on real estate and construction, I could move down to the coast and work there, I could take classes at UNCG and many more options! So I began to narrow it down and look at what I really wanted or didn’t want and what I needed or didn’t need. And that’s when I came across the World Race…. again. A great friend of mine had just returned recently from the race and I remember talking to her a couple years ago about it and thinking it sounded like an incredible experience but would also be a huge commitment especially to God and I just wasn’t ready for that at the time and was also too young to go. I had essentially forgotten about it but after months and months of praying as hard as I could to God about what to do in my life right now I randomly came across the World Raced and remembered what Anna had told me about it. So that’s when I prayed more about what to do and I began to research it heavily because I wasn’t quite sure if this was God giving me a sign or not. In the midst of all of this I called my mentor who was my youth pastor at the church I went to in Boone and whom I had become extremely close with. It just so happened that he had recently started a business focusing on guiding people with big life decisions such as this. So we talked and went very in depth weighing each option and I was told to make a physical list and just let it sit for a while. That was extremely hard for me to do because can be very impatient since I procrastinate so much when I do something I tend to be in a time crunch and have to focus on what to do immediately and until it’s finished. So as I let that list sit and I thought more and more about it that’s when I really felt God calling me to go on this mission trip and really saw the signs how after prayer I came across it and in the time I needed guidance the most my mentor started a business devoted to that. So I decided to apply and take either my acceptance or denial as a sign of what God wanted me to do. I really felt him answering my prayers during this time and I wasn’t procrastinating at all with anything in fact I was getting everything I needed to do done as soon as I could! I realized that God’s timing and our timing are often very different and even though he may take something away or close a door like he did for me with college, he has another path waiting for you that is even better. Another perfect example of this is right now as I’m writing this blog it’s intensifying my excitement and readiness for the world race and I definitely needed that right now! And NOW is when God led me to finally write this blog, and when God led the incredible members of my squad to hold me accountable and actually write this out today!
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight
Don’t try and force your own path through life, trust God and see what paths he opens up for you and just ease through it, you won’t believe how much happier you INSTANTLY become and how much greater his plans for you are than your own.
Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
