Trust.

Do you ever just get overwhelming doubts about God's plan? (What if he doesn't even have one. What if he's just winging it like I feel I am.) Jeremiah 29:11 tells me that's not true though. I'm just telling you what I feel, how it looks from my perspective.

You must have felt the same way too, though, once or twice in your life. You take a look at where you are, and where you have come from, and where you're going (if you can even see in front of you - I can't), and it seems like it doesn't add up. You spend four, five, six years of your life studying and racking up debt and then you get a degree in some narrow field of study and all of a sudden find yourself unemployed with no opportunities in that field at all. And you have to wonder, was I wasting my time? Did I do the wrong thing? What was the point of spending all that money if I'm not even using my education? It just doesn't make sense.

That is where I find myself tonight. Just after midnight, lying awake in my bed worrying over the future. Worrying that I will never find my calling, my purpose, that I'll always just be waiting and wasting my time and everyone else's. I look back at my life, the choices I've made and the roads I've taken to get here, and I just don't see how it adds up. The past and the future (as I can see it) don't match, and it worries me.

Trust me. Just a small voice, and just those words. Nothing else. No revelations or epiphanies. Just the command to trust. And so I draw a deep breath, and I steel myself, and I say, "Okay." It's really the only thing there is to say, anyway. There is nothing else but to trust, am I right? Trust and read your words, and be encouraged. You have plans for me, big, great plans (Jer. 29:11). They're bigger than my plans, better thought out, and more complex than I can understand (Is. 55:8-9). And let's not forget that you love me (Jer. 31:3). If you love me, how can you have anything for me but good?

My worst fear is that I somehow screwed up by picking the wrong school or the wrong major, that I wasn't listening to you hard enough in high school and what if you were actually saying Go here? Do this instead of that? But, what's done is done, and I can't change the past, and I can only hope and trust that even if I wasn't listening to you then, you will use everything for your glory. And since I'm listening to you now, I can make the right choices from here on out.

I can't be alone in this. If you've felt this way, raise your hand. Don't be shy. I want to hear your stories. And I want to give you the same words the Lord gave me tonight: Trust him. He brings everything to light in his own time. Though you may be thinking (as I am), My life is just random circumstances! None of it is adding up, and none of it is giving me a clear sense of direction or purpose. Remember this, my friends: the Lord has a plan, even when you don't. And it's a good one. Listen, and trust, and it will all be revealed, in time.