It baffles me how a place that I was so scared to enter into has now become a home I was sad to leave. Funny how the Lord actually DOES have a plan, right?
This semester has left me grateful. Grateful for deep friendship, accountability like never before, and times where I look around and simply think “I never want to forget this moment.” I noticed true growth when I looked back at my year as a whole. I came from thoughts of transferring to a smaller, more comfortable college, to now - absolutely thriving and becoming who my Father is molding and shaping me to be.
I never want to put my God in a box.
Like I said before, He really does have a plan! Cliche... I know! But when you think about it deeply, it’s a beautiful thing. In John 13:7, Jesus is replying to Simon Peter’s questions when he tells him “you don’t understand now what I’m doing, but someday you will.” While He is not directly speaking to us, it still rings true. Whether our understanding of why He does what he does comes at His feet in Heaven, or whether we see prayers answered here on Earth, there is something so comforting about God being constant and sovereign throughout all of it. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
With all of that being said, the biggest thing I think I learned this semester is that discomfort is not always a bad thing.
We don’t grow much when we are comfortable with our surroundings. If you notice, the Lord puts His children in places that push the boundaries. My God is not afraid of chaos in order to bring about restoration (just read Isaiah). This was something that I saw time and time again over the past few months. Going to a large school, states away, knowing next to no one, and dealing with trials beyond compare, the Lord took my life and made chaos out of it so that I would hear Him saying to me, “my child, look at me. Only me.”
It’s like the story of when Jesus told Peter to get out of the boat and walk on water with Him during a terrible storm (Matt. 14:22-33). Peter’s faith only became stronger the moment he embraced the chaos and stepped out onto the waves. He then knew the character of Jesus like never before.
I want to step out onto the waves every opportunity I can. That is my prayer for the next few months. I want to embrace the chaos and the unknowns because I worship a God that doesn’t need worldly circumstances to stand tall. He is greater and more powerful than anything we could ever imagine. I am therefore not defined my circumstances. I’m defined by what my Father says about me and my world around me.
I’ve said it once before and I’ll say it a thousand times more: I lost every ounce of control over my life this year, but I never want it back. It was never mine to have in the first place.
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