Glorious Uncertainty

Hello all! I haven't posted in a while. Life has been kind of crazy. I'm engaged! She's the most amazing person and well worth the craziness an engagement, planning for a wedding, and looking forward to the rest of life will bring. Speaking of the rest of life, I am about to graduate college! A handful of days stand between me and walking to receive my diploma. This has been a great place for the past four years, and I will definitely miss it. But with that rapidly falling behind me I'm faced with finding a job, working said job, and providing for a family. All of those are great things, but I've been finding myself more and more stressed, more and more overwhelmed, and more and more mentally frantic trying to figure it all out.

Sound kinda crazy? Well it is. It's led to quite a few sleepless nights and stressed out days. So in the past few weeks I've been doing some searching and praying. I've been asking God if this is how it should be, or if I am doing something wrong. This morning he gave me a very clear answer: I have been doing this very wrong.

To start out with, I have been worrying about getting a job that will make enough money to provide for my rapidly approaching family. Will I make enough to put a roof over our heads, put food on the table, and give us clothes to wear? Will I have time to be a good husband, a good father, and a good friend? Will I have time to pursue my dreams or help others pursue their dreams? ...add those to a myriad of other questions and you can probably start to see how it was shaping up. I thought it was my responsibility to care about these things and be proactive about providing. I was right, but I was so wrong.

I was right, but I was wrong because I started distancing myself from God. I started wondering if God would line things up. Did He really care enough to give me time enough to pursue my dreams? Would He provide a job that would allow me to see my family and be a present father? It was questions like those that I never actively thought, but they were the underlying thoughts--they were what caused me to worry.

So, this morning, I was reading Oswald Chambers and was floored by what he said. In My Utmost for His Highest, Chambers says, "Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life, uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life." That by itself would have been a little weird and I would have been like, yeah right Chambers, nice words but that doesn't address real life. But it does...

The truth that Chambers talked about was that God Loves us and wants the best for us. That hit me. He cares about me. Honestly, truly cares about me. He doesn't want me going hungry or needing clothing. And the best part is that he has my future planned already. He's already laid out my steps; I just have to follow His lead.

This felt like a burden was taken off my back. God is not going to sit back and say, "Alright, your turn. Go find a job and something useful to do with your life." He's already leading me where He wants me. He's already lining opportunities up and preparing the way before me. And, even if I don't get a good job or I keep searching without success, He still has a plan, and He still is going before me. When I'm stressed out and at the end of my rope from trying to plan out the next few steps of my life, God is standing next to me on an already laid out path with a welcoming hand, saying, "Here, stop trying to make your way and instead follow mine."

It takes faith. It takes trusting God completely. And, too be honest, that's scary. If I'm honest, I know I'm still not there. But I'm working toward it. I'm choosing to trust Him with the next few steps. He already has it planned and me trying to plan and make it work will only make me exhausted and useless. So it's time. Time to step out on the water. Not looking down or looking around. A life of faith is just that, one step at a time. He's got, I know He Loves me, and I trust Him with my next steps.


Stepping Out Upon the Water,
Joshua