"What do you want to do with your life"

Glorify God

It's midnight as I type this and I should be asleep because I have to take an exam in the morning, but you know how late night thoughts work. You just can't control them. And tonight, the Holy Spirit spoke peace over my life louder than I've ever known.

Most of us are in college, or we will be soon, or we just were. And what's everyone's favorite question to ask? Well, you read the title, I'm sure you can guess. "What do you want to do?" Well, I'm sick and freaking tired of that question. It doesn't matter! The Lords plan prevails. End. Of. Story. I was drawn to this verse that I remembered from memorization past. (The Word is lamp unto my feet, right?)

James 3:13-15 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

YES. Thank You, Lord. I have no Earthly idea what I am going to 'do with my life'. Nor is it my job to know. It's my job to have faith, glorify God in today, and be willing to drop everything and follow Him at a moments notice. That's the beauty of having the Holy Spirit to guide us in making decisions, and to know that the Lord of all eternity has us in His hands.

You see, when I am old and wrinkled (if I live to be that old, God willing) I will finally be able to look back and see the picture that God painted of my life. That painting is going to have tons and tons of different parts to it. With each part will be a phase of life. And at each start of every phase will be the looming reality of the unknown. Yet, as time passes, which it will, each phase will close with an almost physical reality of the ending of a chapter. A page will turn, the chapter will end, and a blank slate will lie ahead. And that will happen a handful of times. Now, what's the beauty of the end of a chapter? You can look back and know what you didn't at the start.

All of this to say, in a year when I graduate college a page will turn and this chapter will end. Before me will stand a blank page. I have no idea what that chapter will look like, how long it will be, where it will take place, nor how it will change me. All I know is that it will, as certainly as the sun will rise, begin and end. In the Lords good and perfect timing.

As for right now, I am where I am because it's where I belong. And that's it. I can look around me and see tools and skills that the Lord is equipping me with that I never would have imagined would be a part of my life. Leadership roles? Ministry? Communications? Business? "If you wanna make God laugh, tell Him your plans." Okay, that may not be a Bible verse, but it's nice and ironic, just the way I like it. I had no idea that I would be where I am now when the last chapter of my life ended- high school. Yet, here I am and it's perfect.

I do not know what lies ahead. All I know is that this particular chapter, College, is meant to equip me for what will come. I am developing skills, learning, teaching, growing, and being pushed and pulled; forced to have faith. That's what this chapter is for. And in a year, when it ends, I will look blindly ahead with full faith that the Lord has already written the next phase of my life, beautifully and perfectly, simply asking me to step forward one foot at a time.

And I will. Because that's the only choice we have. When I am old and wrinkled I pray that when I look back on the picture of my life, I see that it glorifies God and makes His name known among the nations. Because that's all that matters. Because that's what we're called to do.

So the next time someone asks me what I want to do with my life, I hope I have the courage to say, 

"I don't know yet, but it's going to be great."