I am a huge planner and I always have been. I like to know all of the details. I need to know exactly where I am headed and what I will be doing when I get there. However, many times God doesn’t quite reveal all of the details.
I graduated from college last Saturday and I has this realization that up until this point most of my life has been mapped out for me. You grow up going to school so you can get into a good college. Then once you are in college you know that you will be in school for at least another 4 years. However, once you graduate the possibilities are endless. You can go to grad school, get a job, travel the world, etc. Essentially you can go anywhere and do anything! And that is honestly so terrifying to someone who needs to know the exact plan.
Obviously I chose to take the next 11 months to travel the world and tell others about Jesus. I know some details of where I am going and what I am doing for the next year, but so much is still left unknown. I don’t know exactly where in each country I will be located. I don’t even know exactly what we will be doing in each country! And then my mind even goes as far as wondering what will I do when I get back from the World Race.
I start getting so worked up about what is going to happen that pretty soon I realize that I’ve missed out on the here and now. I think so far into the future that many times I miss out on what is right in front of me. I have all of these thoughts and expectations and I’ve already lived every event over and over in my head that when the event actually happens a) it doesn’t meet my own expectations or b) I don’t even enjoy it because my mind is already imagining the next thing.
I do not want to miss out on what is happening now and what God is trying to teach me now because I am so worried about what my life will look like a year from now. I am about to go on the craziest, most challenging adventure of my life and if I am worried about what comes next instead of just living in the moment then I will miss out.
I am praying that I can learn to let go of the little details of the future and instead take in every single moment as it comes. I don’t know what my life will look like in a year. Heck I don’t even know what it will look like tomorrow! So for now I am going to try to take things day by day and soak in every bit of life I can! In the end life is short and I don’t want to miss what God is revealing to me in the moment because I am so worried about the future!
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Matthew 6:25-27
