trusting an unknown future to an all-knowing God.

7/14/2008

I feel like a huge load has been lifted off of me this past week. I finally figured out what I am going to be doing next year...

I will be going to North Greenville University in Tigerville, SC, and I must say, I am quite excited about it! Partly because yeah, it's a good school (hopefully haha), but mainly because I feel like this is the first step towards what God is leading me to. These past six months, I have been worried sick about what I am supposed to do in this beautiful world. I can't stand not knowing!! I'm just so impatient, I want to know His plans for me now. At those times that I have gotten ahead of myself ( and God) and wondered why He just doesn't reveal it all to me, He comes to me, in that beautiful still, small voice, whispering among my cries of impatience, to try to stop looking towards the future and all the plans that I might have and simply spend time with Him.

Saying that is easy, doing it is hard, very very hard for me. I know the desires of my heart! They are at a point now where I cannot deny the passions He has placed in there; but most if the time, I get caught up in this fleeting, stupid life.

I get caught up in the fact that I don't want to see certain people, for fear that it will be awkward. Caught up in thinking that I'll look stupid if I don't have someone to hang out with like I did 24/7 before I left. Caught up in not putting my family as one of the top priorities. Caught up in gossip ( yeah I'm not proud of it ). Caught up in my ridiculous laziness; and as I see all these things and more in my life, I realize time and time again what things are truly important.

I tell people that I am searching for God's will, and well, I am; but how is He supposed to share this information with me if I don't even have a fully developed relationship with Him?

I think it all boils down to spending time in the Word, time where the Creator of the universe is speaking to me. I don't allow Him to do that enough. When I do decide to get in the Word, I'm scared that sometimes it is motivated out of sheer guilt, because I haven't done it in a week or so.

My mind is kinda going around in circles thinking about all of this now, and I can't figure it anymore. What do I do? I want to have the right motivations, but how will ever know if I truly do?
I know I have the right motivations for serving Him, His calling in my life couldn't be more evident, to me at least; but I want to have the right motivations in spending time with Him, in loving Him with all my heart.

On a different note, please pray for me as I start to get ready for college and start off this adventure in the sorta real world :)

Pray that everything that needs to come together will, that God would provide certain things that He knows we need, and most importantly, that He would prepare me for what is to come. While I am at college, pray that the convictions He has already placed in my heart would hold steadfast, and those not yet decided, well that He would reveal them to me in due time. Pray for some upcoming decisions, my major for example ( I'll elaborate a bit on this, sorry), I could really major in tons of things and be pretty happy, and I wish I could just choose them all, but I have boiled it down to missions and photography/photo-journalism; I'm just not sure which as the major and which as the minor. Yes, I feel called to be a missionary, but I'm not really sure if I am called to be one of your conventional overseas, approved by some missions board missionary. I definitely want to spend a considerable amount of time in a foreign country, but I'm not sure if I'm called to do that for a lifetime. All I know is that I have a burning passion for people, and that I would really enjoy the missions classes for some reason :). Then there's photography, one of my joys amongst my many interests. I met a girl a few months ago that got her degree in photo-journalism, and she kinda planted the idea in my head of using that career as a tool for Him. I'm not exactly sure how; but I know that He did not make a mistake in creating me with the eccentricities and passions that He did. I believe He gave me certain talents for a reason, and I really don't want to waste them.

Oh my, as you can tell, I am still a bit confused, less confused than I was a week ago when I had no clue what school I was going to, but nonetheless confused. Clarity from Him will come in time, as long as I stick close to where He is walking and working.

goodnight.