Tuesday, June 19, 2007

There Is No Time Like the Present


I have been struggling in my mind over the future. Ever do that? I have called friends and mentors for guidance, and I have flippantly prayed. You know the kind of prayer that seems like work to fit into 5 minutes. Well, it seems God listen to that too. Though I am ashamed to know he does.

I have been avoiding the future. I have all summer at school before I need to decide definitely where I’ll be working. I’m nervous about making a major decision because it seems ages ago that I chose the things that have brought me to where I am now.

I remember the peace I felt sitting in the Burt Gazebo on a cool Fall Preview night. I remember the “Ah Ha!” moment when I finally chose journalism, though it had long before chosen me. I remember the clear calling to ministry that welled inside of me like a sincere hunger to serve God and love his people.Though the light bulb moments of my life have clearly defined my path thus far, I cannot remember how I came to them. Is there some magic process to making the “right” decisions?

Depressingly enough, I am currently going through the book of Ecclesiastes as a part of my devotion time. I say depressing because “Every thing is meaningless” does not exactly inspire hope about choosing a career path. However, through the straight-forward preaching on Matt Chandler’s podcasts (available at http://www.thevillagechurch.net/resources/database_scripture.html) I am starting to grasp what it means to live “Beyond the Sun.” If you’re interested in learning more, I highly recommend downloading the podcasts and listening for yourself.

I am also working on finding the next step for me. I called Shawn Shannon to ask for advice, and she gave me a good start on the recipe of making Godly decisions:

1. Surrender yourself to God’s will

2. Gather information

3. Pray specifically and fervently (not flippantly)

4. Wait for divine providence

Currently I am in the waiting stage. Another thing I was interested in knowing was how you can be sure you’re in the right place. I walked around my prospective place of employment and tried in vain to find an “Ah Ha!” or deep peace feeling. The walk seemed rather silly and too caught up on sensibility to be a good judge of the job.

Today, I rode my bike the three and some odd miles from my house to the public lake and went for a swim. It was a big-sky Texas day with deep blue stretching out into infinity and giant cumulous clouds giving the hill country the appearance of mountain ranges.

As I rode I could smell the perfume of spring in the country—an odd mixture of wildflowers, earth, the occasional cow and a Texas breeze bringing a million other scents together into one clean breathe after another. You may laugh, but that is the smell of my childhood, the smell of home.

The mixture of familiar scents and the beauty of the sky was overwhelming. I felt deep peace and an understanding that for today that feeling was all I needed. The words from the age-old hymn How Great Thou Art rang in my mind as the only response to what I saw and how I felt.

Later after mulling over the moments of that bike ride and trying to form them into the best word picture possible, remembered a passage in Matthew that made me smile.

"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 important than food, and the body more important 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? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?.... But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:25-27; 33-34

I know I am where I need to be right now. The future is in God’s capable hands, and I will now forever be reminded of that when I look around my own backyard. Look at the birds of the air, look at the lilies of the field, they do not worry past today, and I will endeavor to do the same. The future is not as good as today.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oi, achei teu blog pelo google tá bem interessante gostei desse post. Quando der dá uma passada pelo meu blog, é sobre camisetas personalizadas, mostra passo a passo como criar uma camiseta personalizada bem maneira. Até mais.

Quail Hunting said...

hey! i stumbled on your blog quite accidentally while trying to (god forbid) use the internet to figure out my own borderline existential, twentysomething angst (the worst kind). i just wanted to say this post was exactly the thing i needed to hear at this particular moment. so, even though you don't know me from adam: thanks!
~cari (unagotitadenada.livejournal.com)