While I was in college, I was a contributor to a blog—started
by Moody Publishing for millennials—for about a year. The blog ended up
changing its name and web address, and eventually the old domain expired…so the
posts I authored now exist only on my computer [yes, I keep *everything*!!].
But occasionally I will be reminded of something I wrote and go back and look
at it.
That happened recently with a post that was originally
published on Thrive80 in April of 2012. The editor team had asked us to
contribute posts about hypothetical ways to ruin your life before the age of
30. Below is what I wrote – with a current postscript at the end! :D It’s a
message that spoke to my heart again today, even though I’m now in a different
stage of life than I was as a 2nd semester junior.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are so many options available of what we can do with
our lives. This is especially true for
our generation. We have grown up in a
world where travelling to another country is something that is not all that
unusual, where we are told that we can be whatever we want to be.
Boys and girls both have increasingly equal chances to
pursue whatever course they desire in their lives. Our current president has demonstrated that
the color of one’s skin can no longer effectively bar one from even the highest
office in the land. [Remember this was originally written in 2012!] Freed from
the constraints of comparative financial and physical limitations, the vast
majority of our generation of Americans is free to chase and reach their
dreams.
But there is one thing that can quickly and easily destroy
any chance we have of achieving our goals:
FEAR
The fear of not making the right choice. The fear of things not working out the way I
want them to. The fear that no matter
how hard I try, it won’t be good enough.
The fear that God’s plan will be different than mine and ruin what I
seek.
Such fear can paralyze us, preventing us from doing anything
productive. It can wrap its chains
around our hearts and weigh us down.
Allowing this fear to overtake us is exactly what the enemy would love
to see. When Christians are bound by
fear, they will not take the risks or chances that could lead them to victory
in their lives or to bring God glory.
Not giving fear a foothold in my life is something I have
been learning a lot about both last summer and this month. As a person who wants people to like me and
who wants to always make exactly the right choices, I can tend to hesitate too
long in doing something important with my life – fearing rejection, fearing the
unknown.
But God does not call us to fear. He calls us to hope and trust. He calls us to live with our all on the line,
to pursue Him whole-heartedly no matter what might happen. It is then that He will gladly pour out His
blessings on us and give us the desires of our hearts (Ps. 37:4, 1 Pet. 5:6-7).
Last summer, God kept bringing me back to the verse in 1
John which tells us that perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves
torment (4:18). There is no reason for
us to fear the future, because God loves us.
When we do fear, it is a signal that we are not yet fully willing to
trust God with all that we are. And yet,
because He loves us so much, He consistently and patiently points us back to
Him. “Trust Me, My child,” He whispers,
“I love you more than you can even love yourself.”
Earlier this month, I was in a place of inner turmoil and
doubt. There was something I sensed God
was calling me to, but everything within me was frightened of what would happen
if I did it. On Good Friday, I was able
to spend a large chunk of time outside, away from the distractions of everyday
life. In that time, God used the
feelings I was struggling with to bring me back to this idea of fear. He did this through a part of Scripture I had
memorized years ago.
In James 4:13-16, the author is criticizing people who go to
the opposite extreme of the problem I am talking about here. Those folks assume that they do know exactly
what will happen. They make plans and
are overly confident that they will achieve their goals. James reminds his readers that the fact is
that we don’t know what will happen. Our
life is a vapor. “Instead,” he
concludes, “you ought to say, ‘If the
Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’”
He is calling these people to live their lives in a manner
which is surrendered to God’s plan for their lives. He is calling them to trust. But an important point here is that James
does not say we should walk around in fear.
[Neither does he] say “Sit still in your house until you know exactly
what it is God has planned for you to do because otherwise you will be a
failure.” No! Rather, he is simply cautioning that while we
can make our plans, we should not presumptuously assume that things will come
out just as we expect.
James then turns and equally chastises the people who are
too bound by fear. “Therefore,” he writes, “to him who knows to do good and does not do
it, to him it is sin” (4:17). God does
allow us a level of free will! I’m not
going to try to debate this large theological issue, but suffice it to say I do
not believe in a deterministic view of God’s sovereignty. I believe He leaves room for human choice and
plans.
James’ last verse here is telling us to do what we know we
should. Follow through on applying for
that job, even if you’re not sure how it will work out. Try to make friends with that person you see
sitting alone, despite the fact they may choose to ignore you. Love freely, as you have been loved – even
when that can open you up to hurt and disappointment.
Thinking through this passage in James brought me back to
something that has been a recurring theme of my college career: that life
issues rarely fit into neat categories.
Instead, as Aristotle’s theory of the golden mean describes, the ideal
course of action typically lies in finding a balance between two extreme responses. As I tweeted shortly after my time of
reflection, “I am called to trust - not to either fear that God may change my
plans, nor to presume that He will not.”
And so, my friends, there is one word that can prevent you
from letting fear ruin your life and paralyze you. It may be a simple word, but the concept is
deep – one which God has been slowly developing in my life for months:
TRUST
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Interestingly, God has continued to use that passage from
James in my life, without me consciously remembering this post I wrote. In
October of 2015, I was praying about whether God would have me commit to coming
back to Uganda after my initial 14-month stint as staff was over. Again, I was
out in nature spending time communing with Him. And as I prayed, He gave me
those same verses in James.
And so they’ve stayed in the back of my mind – as I said
that yes, I would return to Uganda. As I renewed my work permit in early 2016
for two years. As I think about the future now. Those are the verses that my
mind goes back to. I can make my plans, but God may change them at any time.
And yes, that’s scary—IF I forget how faithful and trustworthy God is. IF I
ignore the fact that He knows things I can’t even imagine. IF I don’t remember
that His purposes are perfect.
The word that is the call to my heart is still the same now
as it was five years ago:
TRUST.
