Three months before I was supposed to walk across the stage of my college graduation I had a beautiful vision of what my life was going to look like post-grad. Where I wanted to live, what job I was interested in taking, who I would be dating, what vacations I would take, etc. That’s kind of how we structure our lives, isn’t it? We create these little visions for ourselves and become so comforted by our seemingly planned out lives. Then things change rapidly and we sit there, completely out of control, watching our plans crumble before us.
We think we have it all figured out for ourselves, we think we know what we need and want, and then God moves us again. & just like that, our worlds are rocked and we are left on the ground wondering how everything went from planned and perfect to unwritten and unknown. Comforting to terrifying.
See the thing is, our earthly selves believe we know exactly what we need and what we want and how we can achieve it. We have desires and we want to fulfill them. Not a difficult concept to follow, really. But we don’t see to the right of this moment. Our concept of our lives only goes up to the very second we’re living in.
Sure, we have our work schedules or our classes planned out, but we do not know what kind of storms are coming our way, what ways God intends on moving us, or who will walk into our lives to change us for the better. We, believe it or not, are not sovereign over all. But God is. He sees what we truly need; what our souls need. He knows His plans for every one of us. He has every intention of changing our lives for our good and His glory.
He has complete control over everything. & that vision we had created for ourselves has no comparison for what God has planned for us. Is it always easy to accept? Absolutely not. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I have sat on my floor asking God to give me the slightest hint of what He had planned because I felt like my plan had been so much better. Clinging so desperately to a sense of comfort and safety in what had been taken away, rather than clinging tightly to the one thing that never changes.
I thought I could do everything on my own. I thought I knew what job was fitting for me. I thought I knew who was best for me to spend my time with. But what I didn’t know was how much I needed to work through, or what I needed to prepare for.
Because three months ago I had no idea I would be writing this blog post from a hotel room in New Zealand. Three months ago I was ignoring my hearts longing of doing missionary work with no intentions of going to Africa to serve. Three months ago I was settling for the comfort I was finding in my earthly wants. Three months ago I had no idea the ways God was going to move me, and I had no idea that my plan I had made up was nothing in comparison to His.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t wake up one day and realize what God was doing. It took me weeks, even months, to let go of the things I thought I needed that had been taken away. I wanted my plan to be right. I wanted to be back in control of my life. But the truth is, I never was in control of it. He had been there all along, knowing every step I was going to take in order to get me to this very moment.
In three months God has taught me more about myself than I thought needed to be uncovered. He is so faithful and so good. & although I am sure I will have a season of life that will take me right back to where I was three months ago, I can’t help but sit here and ask myself what on earth was I even thinking when I thought I knew what I needed?
