Uncertainty is a strange place to be. It is accompanied with a variety of emotions – fear, excitement, anticipation, anxiety, worry, impatience, confusion, frustration, hope, and even joy. Perhaps all of these don’t weigh on my soul simultaneously, but within the course of a few weeks each is sure to take its place at the forefront. It seems spiritually immature to respond with such emotions, even when the future is somewhat of a blur. I have my plan. But all that tells me is that I don’t know where life will lead. After all, my plan has never, not once, played out the way I rehearsed in my head. The only thing my plan tells me is what is most certainly not going to be, at least not in full. So I wait, hoping I’m learning to be more patient with each day. But at the same time striving to make the best of each moment I have now, with my beautiful wife and precious young boys who won’t be young for long. How sad it would be to focus so much on the future, whether good intentioned or based in fear, only to find the present has become the past without my even realizing.
Throughout it all one thing is sure. One thing is constant. One thing is certain. God’s plan will prevail. His plan for His kingdom, for this world, and even for my own life, will come to happen as He sees fit. I pray that I have the wisdom to follow the path He lay before me; that I recognize when He leads me and that I don’t stubbornly cling to what I think is best, somehow convinced that if I think it is best, He must too. I’m open to where He leads. I don’t know where that will be. In the meantime, I must work harder to live now for Him. It’s nearly heartbreaking to imagine myself always waiting for God to call me into action, failing to act where I’m already placed. He has called me in so many ways already – to be an honest man, a faithful husband, an engaged, loving and active father, and most importantly, to grow in relationship with Him. After all, success is any of those first areas hinges upon the last. I am never perfect in these callings. Worst of all, I tend to find time for everything but growing in my faith. It’s time to start. No waiting for where He’ll lead me, what my “calling” will be, or for that next phase that lies before. Pray for me for transformation, that I can truly live out God’s calling for me where I am planted.
Once my focus is on God instead of on me or my plans for the future, everything else falls into place. Gone is the worry, anxiety, fear, and impatience. The unknown will always remain to some degree, but it will be joined with certainty. Certainty in God, in His goodness and grace in my life, bringing a satisfaction I could never gain by my own doing.
The often used...
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
A calling if there ever was one…
1st Corinthians 16:13-14 “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
http://www.seedsfamilyworship.com/product/the-word-of-god-vol-8-2/# [Play Track 9]
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