Author | Jamie

I read an article yesterday titled When Your Whole Life Feels a Bit Up in the Air. Yep. That’s us. Still. It’s funny how one can live an entire year of not knowing what the future holds and still struggle to believe that it is God who holds the future. I believe that in my head, but living as if I believe that is another thing entirely.

The Arguments I Hear in My Head

Argument #1: A Sabbatical year is Biblical. A little off the beaten path maybe, but still Biblical. We hit the one-year mark last week. It’s time to get to work. To be honest, though, I’ve been telling God that it’s been time to get to work throughout the entire year. It seems that He was bent on a different kind of work than I had in mind. He chose to work on my heart, rooting out pain and lies and idols, and then replacing them with love and peace and true identity. It was hard work for sure. Yet not the kind of hard work that pays the bills or brings the nations to faith. From the outside looking in, it was not productive. But is that really true?

Argument #2: If I don’t push hard and fight for what I want, how can I expect to get it? In this American culture of pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and striving to turn dreams into reality, inactivity looks foolish. It can also create great amounts of fear. What if it doesn’t happen? What if we get left behind? What if we are unable to create anything good for ourselves or our family? What if we fail?

Yet the Bible speaks again and again about waiting on the Lord. God says that His plans will always succeed. The plans of people often fail (Psalm 33:10-11). Why would I want to invest a lot of energy in a plan that is only mine? I want to take time to pray and seek God so that my will is lined up with His. When that happens, I can be sure the plan will work. Not because I have discovered some magic formula, but because His plans always succeed.

If God Is Actually in Charge…

If God is actually in charge and working His plan, all I have to do is stay close to Him. I don’t have to constantly strive to know what to do. I just ask and wait and follow. Some days He does not give me much to work on. This is hard for my deeply engrained work ethic, but I’m learning to trust His pacing, take a deep breath, and rest on those days. He knows that in the near future, there will be much to think about and work on. In His wisdom, He schedules in time to rest so I can be well prepared to run on the days God seems hard to keep up with.

If I’m honest, I’m afraid that I will miss an opportunity. The world keeps turning, even while I rest. I fall into the trap of believing that everything depends on me. If I don’t figure it out or make something happen, then nothing will happen. Even in my more spiritual moments, when I remember that God is in charge, I often worry that I will not know what He wants me to do. I fear that I will miss His leading, and so also miss His blessing.

Up in the Air…With God

I know all these whispers in my head are destructive lies from the enemy. He seeks only to steal my peace, kill my dreams, and distract me from cherishing the beautiful gifts God grants in this moment. When I get into this line of thinking, I lose the peace and the joy that God makes available today. I know that my Father offers another way – a better way. Am I willing to trust Him?

Am I willing to believe that God is currently working His plan? Along the way, He is inviting me to join with Him in what He is doing. My prayer is that He will help me to keep His pace – not running ahead and not lagging behind. At this speed I get to walk alongside the Almighty God, who happens to also be my best friend. So what if my life feels all up in the air? Isn’t that where my Father’s throne is anyway? He is capable of parting seas and moving mountains to accomplish His purposes. And I get to be a part of it.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. ~ Proverbs 3:5-6