Forthright Fixation

Like most soon-to-be high school graduates, my thoughts are often on my future and many unanswered questions surface from the recesses of my heart.  Sometimes these questions are easy to push to the side until they can be answered, and at other times, they manage to push their way to the front of my mind so I become totally engrossed with them and given to impatience and frustration.

My thoughts have been on the future a lot lately.  I’m waiting to hear back from colleges.  I’m waiting to find out what I should be preparing for; whether to move away from home or to stay.  I’m trudging through my last 2.5 months of high school with lagging enthusiasm and motivation.  I can’t wait for the day when I’ll be able to hold my hard-earned diploma in my own two hands.  All these thoughts tumble over and over themselves, again and again in my head; never leaving me for one waking moment.  The more I think on them, the more I lose focus on the Lord and feel myself begin to sink into the depths of despair and doubt.  I hit rock bottom a few days ago.  I barely had any resolve to get out of bed.  All I wanted to do was cry and whine.  I very seriously doubted that the Lord’s plan for my life would be perfect according to His will.  Forget good and pleasing (Romans 12:2).  I began to view God as a cruel dictator who could toss me about as He likes, in whatever way He fancies. But our God is not cruel nor is He whimsical.  The plan He has for my life was established in eternity past and it is unfolding as I type, even if I can clearly see it or not. 

At church on Sunday, the Lord sent certain people to encourage me; although it’s unlikely they realized that they were doing so.  They were possibly just asking after the pastor’s daughter and her future plans.  But each one I spoke to reminded me that my future is in the Lord’s Hands regardless of what it holds.  They told me that He goes before me _and_ with me. They told me they were praying for me.  It was an incredible blessing.   And I was encouraged too, when I sat down to my schoolwork on Monday morning (gasp I didn’t think that would ever be possible) and was told to read Psalm 139.  Verses 3-5 spoke straight to my heart and crushed any remaining doubt I had:

“You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.  Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.  You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” (ESV)

Verses 7-9 go on to tell of God’s omnipresence and that wherever I turn, He will be there.  His hand will lead me and His right hand will hold me (vv. 10).

I’m sure that my thoughts will turn to my future again.   By mid-April I hope to have a better idea of what I’m going to be doing, but I may not have an answer by then.  Between now and then, however, I have no guarantee that I will not be inundated with anxiety and doubt again.  But I do have the presence and leadership of God promised to me in Scripture, I have the hope of an eternity with Christ in heaven, and I have been commanded to work at whatever is required of me with all my heart as working for the Lord and not for men (Col. 3:23).   I don’t imagine that the coming weeks of waiting will be any easier than the rest of them have been.  But until my future becomes less murky I will keep trusting the Lord and waiting on Him alone. 

“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.” (Psalm 130:5-6, ESV)

Filed under: Christian Living, Faith, Uncategorized, Weakness