Trust

I am completely out of control of my life. Becoming okay with this fact is one of the most difficult struggles that I have faced. And the struggle is not over.

As a kid I was called a control freak. Unfortunately, I believe that this label is true of me and so many others out there. There are phases in life where it is easy to say that I depend on God and trust Him. However, when I say I am trusting God it is often because I am lacking a plan, hoping that God would reveal something to me, and deep inside I am frantically trying to figure it out. It wasn’t until recently that I have been placed in a position where I am completely out of plans and have no idea where to begin when it comes to taking the first step in fabricating one.

Until now every major phase in my life has had a clear finish line up ahead. If I could just suffer through middle school, high school would be better. If I could just finish high school and get out of my hometown, I could have a fresh start at college. But when I graduate… I have no short term end point to reach that can console me in case I screw up and make the wrong choice.

The future can be a terrifying thing if you let it. As a kid I had planned out my life pretty well. I took great comfort in the fact that no matter how many times my plans got messed up, my long-term goals/plans would still eventually work out. After all, God loves me and wants me to be happy, right? And of course, my plans I so carefully created are the only thing that can make me happy, right? (NOTE: This is what we English speakers like to call sarcasm.)

To try to keep this brief let me just say that those long-term goals and plans are now in the short-term range, and God is showing me that perhaps those were meant to be pulled apart, too. I have never had to live each day in complete dependence on God, and as a result I feel like I never actually learned what it means to trust.

This is not a post to say I now have it all figured out, but one to say I don’t. This is me saying that I am so anxious to know what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be going when I finish school, but I am going to stop trying to seek opportunities that direct my life back towards my plan. With white-clenched fists I am slowly handing the story of my life back to the Lord.

Take this as my Psalm 31. Pray for me as I seek to find contentment in the Lord and learn to truly trust him one day at a time.

Even as I type those words I feel uneasy at the thought of not knowing what tomorrow may hold. So basically I really need prayer, y’all.