What's Next?

For the first time in my entire life, I don't have an answer to that.
One year from today will be January 7, 2012. It will be a Saturday. I will still be in winter break, a week away from starting the spring semester of my junior year. I will probably be at my parents house, since I enjoy spending my breaks there with my family. I will be applying to LSAT prep camps for the summer so I will be prepared to take the LSAT that fall. My tattoo will still be on my wrist. I will still be chasing Jesus with my whole heart.

Here's what I don't know:

1. Where I will be living
2. What my job/ internship will be
3. Relationships I will form, both friends and mentors
4. What ministries I will be involved in
5. God's timing for many things that may or may not happen in 2011

Here's what I will know then, that I don't know now:

1. Where I am living starting this summer
2. If I got accepted into the IJM internship
3. My GPA
4. Where I worked/ interned in 2011
5. If I kept my resolutions
6. God's timing for 2011


But, frankly, I have no idea where God is leading me right now. Through obedience (somewhat reluctant at times), I have found myself in a place of complete and total vulnerability. Although, I have a sense of where I would like God to lead me, I don't really have any idea of where He actually will. When I don't know what's going to happen next, or where I am going, or how it will all work out, that's when my anxiety is at it's worst. But, knowing that is how I should be feeling right now, I don't. I feel peace because I am completely reliant on God and He is so faithful to those who obey Him. I don't feel the need to know what He has in store for me next, in fact not knowing is a burden lifted off my heart. All I have to do is listen and obey, and I have, through this process, learned what it feels like in my heart when God is telling me what I need to do. I also learned that even if I am reluctant to listen, God doesn't just give up, He will eventually make it very, very clear that it is time to obey.

My prayer for today comes straight out of Psalms:

Psalm 119

John 14:15-17 (New Living Translation)

If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.

Deuteronomy 11:26-28 (New Living Translation)

Look, today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse! You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. But you will be cursed if you reject the commands of the Lord your God...

Romans 6:16-18 (The Message)

Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!

Habakkuk 2:2-3 (The Message)

And then God answered: "Write this.
Write what you see.
Write it out in big block letters
so that it can be read on the run.
This vision-message is a witness
pointing to what's coming.
It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait!
And it doesn't lie.
If it seems slow in coming, wait.
It's on its way. It will come right on time.

Footsteps In The Sand

One night a man had a dream.
He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the LORD.
Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand:
one belonging to him, and the other to the LORD.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him
he looked back, at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that many times along the path of his life
there was only one set of footprints.
He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times of his life.

This really bothered him and he questioned the LORD about it:
"LORD, you said that once I decided to follow you,
you'd walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life
there is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."

The LORD replied:
"My son, My precious child, I love you and I would never leave you,
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

Author unknown

over and out