“It feels as if years have passed since I have pressed this pen here. Caught in the conflict of figuring a blog, I have rather found myself before Him. Again, giving it to Him to have. My future.”
This was my journal entry from yesterday. As you can tell, I didn’t have an idea or great story resting inside me to share with you all. However, as I began to write out everything inside me, God sprinkled truth over my thoughts and perspective on my future. The last few months of the race have the tendency to call the future to attention. Gradually questions of, “What will I do when I get home?” and “Who will I be there?” start there way into conversation and as for me, make me question all day long. I’ve never had to determine the future or sacrifice my own to the Lord, there always seemed to be a plan.
When I hopped onto the race back in September, there was no coherent “feeling” that had me there. I specifically remember on the way to Launch thinking,”Is this what I am supposed to be doing?” For the most part, that answer was quickly answered by the time I set foot in Guatemala. But the way of thinking that led me to question the next nine months of my life and consequently where I have found myself in the last week, has changed. As Bob Goff would put it…
I used to think God used green neon signs for the future,
Now I know he just uses me.
In high school, I felt that every day carried the same weight and motion. I wake. I sleep. My incredible family there in between and memories to cherish but, I felt caught in the revolving door of knowing what to expect and accepting it. Not just as “what is to come”, but what is. It was my belief that each day was going to happen that led me down a path dry of passion or purpose. But when I stepped onto the world race, an opportunity that fell into my lap, there was a reality I had to face. The reality that life presents itself as an invitation to know God. To run, dance, sing, dive, and somersault into His creation. In the beginning of the race, I saw that a life with God orders there to be adventure. It positions it to have great risk.
The risk however, presented in the moment, changes as it faces the future. A summer ago, a group of friends, my family, and I set out for a cliff jumping spot next to a dam (totally legal). There rested three different rock faces that bulged out over the water. The first was a breezy fifteen feet, the second was about thirty feet, and the top, embalmed with trees, a fifty footer. Fifty feet may not sound that high, but when you only have three feet of standing space and a jump radius of about five so as to not plunge into four feet of water versus fifteen, it’s sketchy. (Don’t worry, my adrenaline calculated all of this pre jump as I went airborne). Presented in the moment, risk was a two second drop into a small water hole. Presented to the future, risk is year/decade long commitments and marriage.
The model in my head of floating into opportunity was completely train wrecked as I started to weigh the options of what the future could be. The presumptions of high school and even the race as you begin to get settled, promise the expectation of schedules. My mindset of floating into “the next thing ahead” carried the assumption of opportunity. But as month seven and eight hit, it was looking dark and adrenaline couldn’t help me out on this one. So, as I began to look more closely at my options for the year after the race, the green neon sign from God never showed. Or at least the one I believed He had stowed away for me.
The options lay there before me, and my struggle began. Clarity and I played hide and seek for about a week and I was getting tired. During our MDB (Mini debrief), I was able to sit down with my Squad mentor, Kacie, and asked for her wisdom. What she told me started to shape not only the way I thought about my future with God, but how I talked to Him about it. For her, there was only one instance in her life where she felt God directly say “Do this.” Kacie, who is wiser, older, and way more mature than I am, has only been given that green neon sign once. I was, and still am, relieved to know that my loving God gives us a choice at times in life. I strongly believe He does have a plan for me and there are moments in life sovereignty known “so that” I may be His minister. But in this case, He is the giver of options and green neon signs.
So now having a choice in what I do next year totally relieved all the stress, right? Wrong. I still went back and forth as I felt my heart begin to side with one option over the other. But, as my journal spills it, I wasn’t struggling so much with the option of picking, but rather giving. My Dad directed me to these sweet words as everything went down:
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Proverbs 3:5-6
As I kid, I can still remember Him saying this to me. Now, at 19, it has guided me to a place of contentment and manhood. The beauty in sacrificing my heart and its plans to Him, along with its uncertainty, is that He still gives me the decision. Similar to love, it calls on all that which is in us to act. Trusting Him, leaning on Him, and acknowledging Him has not made the decision for me. It has given me wisdom, clarity, and peace in making it. The more and more I have rested with Him in this struggle, the less reality becomes black and white, heaven and earth. He’s colored it with the red of sacrifice, the white of redemption. Likewise, I pray mine may ring the same.
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With that said, I have decided to apply for the wilderness semester at Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters in NC. Hopefully, I’ll be back in the Appalachians this fall.
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Also, I acknowledge I talk a lot about the future and even clarity as its own entity in ways. Maybe even risk, too. The reason that I have chosen not to change my words or write them in a way that better reflects my belief and relationship with God is so I do not project an illusion of relationship. I wanted it to carry the raw struggle between believing and knowing the goodness of the Lord in the midst of uncertainty. I hope this has brought clarity if any of my words brought confusion. If not…then I never wrote this part 🙂
Thank you so much. Month 8, here we are.
-Will
