When I was 17, I had no clue what I was going to do after high school.
It freaked me out.
I’d pray and I’d research colleges and career paths and I’d think and I’d think until my brain was
Somedays I could just focus on the here and now and block out the great looming bully called the future that was always just around the corner about to clobber me. Other days I’d be crying on my bedroom floor, begging God for direction, a clear path, some career that inspired me, or college that I could attend.
“Please, God” I’d cry, ” I’m tired of not having a plan. I’m tired of people asking. Please, give me a sign. Please lead me, show me, PLEASE.”
Sometimes I wished that God would drop down a book from the sky with the blueprints to my life- what to study, where to work, who to marry, etc…
But he didn’t.
And he didn’t answer those desperate prayers of mine for a long, long time.
Why?
I wasn’t ready.
Even though I didn’t see it at the time, I had created an idol out of my life, or as some would term it, my “calling”. I wasn’t satisfied
As the weeks wore on, my attitude towards God changed from desperation to resentment. I was no longer pleading with God, I was fighting with him. Fighting for my pride, for my independence. For my need to know the future.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried fighting with God before, but let me just warn you in advance-
you’ll lose every time.
Eventually, I realized my demanding prayers weren’t going to work. And besides that my soul was aching for the joy, fulfillment, and peace I was missing from my relationship with God.
At the end of the day, I didn’t need to know Gods plans for me.
I just needed to know God.
So, I let go. I
It was as if I was holding a pen that I hadn’t been equipped to write with and demanding God to give me the words to a story.
I just couldn’t do it.
So I gave him back the pen.
I’d like to say that after that all the pieces to my story fell together, and all my wildest dreams came true.
They didn’t. But something better did.
Gods wildest dreams for me began to come true.
Malachi 3:10 says,
“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse,
That there may be food in My house,
And try Me now in this,”
Says the Lord of hosts,
“If I will not open for you the windows of heaven
And pour out for you such blessing
That there will not be room enough to receive it.”
In that verse, God doesn’t just ask for a few
“BRING THEM ALL.”
Jesus didn’t ask his disciples to believe in him and then just walk away. He said “Come FOLLOW me.” And they left their lifestyles, their work, their worldly “callings” and followed him.
God wants more than just our S
“Bring all the tithes” he says.
Letting God take control of my future was scary. What if he asked me to do something I didn’t want to? What if he led me somewhere I didn’t want to go?
The truth: He has. Following Christ often means dying to myself and taking up a cross. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. Because following Christ also means lasting joy, eternal hope, and rich reward.
For the same God that says “Bring me all the tithes” also says, “and try me now in this, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.”
I once heard it said that giving God control over all the hopes and dreams of our future is like
He has so much in store for us if we’d just trust his nature and surrender our lives.
I can’t say that these last couple years have been easy. I can’t say that I have fully trusted God or that his path has been crystal clear.
But I can say with full assurance that I have experienced deep peace and true joy by handing over my future to the one who knows it, and fully giving my life to the one who created it.
“A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. “
-Proverbs 16:9
Stop clutching onto the pebbles of your hopes and dreams. Give them to God and watch him open heavens windows as he does with your life what you never could.
