Anxiety for the Future or Plans for Peace?

Some people wonder how I have little to no anxiety over what my life will be like in the future.  I mean, so many people have their lives planned out to the nth degree, and I just don’t.  Okay, I know that I have a job for this summer, but once mid-August gets here, I don’t know where I’m going to be or what I’m going to be doing.  And why doesn’t this bother me?

Let me tell you, it used to.  I used to be the type of person who didn’t take anything lightly.  I worried about my actions and how they would impact my future (which I’m not knocking by the way, what we do right now absolutely does impact what our future will look like and I am in no way advocating living recklessly).  I would always worry about what I was going to do, where it was going to get me in life, and when it would get me there. 

Toward the end of high school, I subscribed to the theory that once I graduated I would have to make decisions for myself, and if I didn’t plan for my future, then I would go nowhere in life.  This included college, because if you don’t go to college you will ultimately fail at life.  Right?

Well, two years ago I did make that decision to go to college, and that was fine, and I have no doubt that it was where I needed to be, but I think there was a little more to it than I realized at the time.  However, in the past one and a half years (give or take) I have only made one decision for myself; I decided to let God lead me and let Him make all my decisions.

This may surprise many people who tend to think that I’m a pretty impulsive person (which is not true at all, there is a lot of time and prayer in my decision making process), but soon after I left home, I came to the conclusion that, as a human fully equipped with human nature, I was in no position to be making life decisions for myself, so I simply handed it over to God.

Now, I say “simply,” but I’m pretty sure it was the least simple thing I’ve ever done.  It has consisted of a lot of waiting and praying and trusting, none of which come naturally to me.  However, it’s a huge burden that has been lifted off of my shoulders.

You see, God created us.  He knew all our days before we were even conceived.  Since He already knows what He has planned for us (and by the way, it’s better for us than anything we could come up with on our own) then why would we not let Him take the lead?  It can be hard to follow what He wants and not what I want, and it’s hard to know exactly what He wants me to do sometimes too.  One of my most constant prayers is probably “God, please correct me if I’m wrong..”

Sometimes, though, it’s painfully obvious what He wants, and it’s not at all what I want.  Shortly after I made this decision to let God make my decisions, He made one.  Around the beginning of my 2^nd semester at NYU, I could feel God telling me that my time there was almost up.  This was unfortunate, because I really liked it there.  I assumed this meant I would be taking my studies elsewhere, but still in or around the field of chemical and biological engineering. 

Nope.  It became evident that this was no longer to be my field of study.  So I’m sitting here like “Okay God… now what?  You just want me to stand by?  Really?”  And I’ll admit that I may have gotten a little sarcastic with God.  This new development didn’t make any sense to me, and I didn’t like it at all. 

So, I dropped out and moved back in with my parents.  Yes, I’m technically a college dropout.  And I had no idea what to do.  I spent last summer (wow, that was only a year ago!) praying and searching for what my next step would be.  Everything in society told me that I was a failure, and I was just at the beginning of my college dropout failure of life and I didn’t know what to do. 

Well, God led me, with the help of those around me, to be a substitute teacher.  No, not as a career (I don’t think anyway) but as a job.  And you know what?  I could not have picked a better job for myself.  And I wouldn’t have picked this for a job either.  It’s so far away from what I wanted for myself and what I thought myself capable of, which just goes to show you that God really does laugh at our plans!

Meanwhile, I felt that I would be continuing school, but I just didn’t know in what.  As it would happen, I only ended up taking about 6 months off from school.  Again, I had to let God lead me and make my decision, and again, He had different plans than I did.  I wanted to study theology, but God turned me away from that more than once.  To this day I think it would be awesome to study.  But as much as I prayed, I thought I was hearing no answer.  Turns out that that was my answer; wait.  I waited.  Then one day, I stumbled upon the idea of traditional naturopathy, and I knew immediately that it was what I was going to be studying.  I knew before I even fully knew what it was. 

So I applied within a week of finding out about it, and again I will say that I could not have picked better.  I would have never thought about traditional naturopathy had God not placed it across my path, but I would not have enjoyed anything else more.

To answer the question of how I feel little to no anxiety about my future; I feel that I am in very capable hands.  For instance, as I briefly mentioned earlier, right now I know that in a few weeks I start a job at a summer camp that ends in mid-August, and I don’t know what I’ll do after that, but I’m not worried.  God knows where I’ll be, and the fact that I don’t know yet means that I don’t need to.  He will let me know in time, whether that’s five minutes before it happens, or months in advance.  All I have to do is trust, listen, and follow.

I read a passage in the Bible recently that pretty much sums it all up:

“Thus says the Lord:
‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man
    and makes flesh his strength,
    whose heart turns away from the Lord.
 He is like a shrub in the desert,
    and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
    in an uninhabited salt land.

‘Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.’”

--Jeremiah 17:5-8

  

Fear, What is it Good For?

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
     He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
     He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.”

--Psalm 23:1-4

This verse has been in my head for quite some time now, and I’m always pondering it trying to figure out what it should mean to me.  I’m never literally walking through the valley of the shadow of death (or any valley here in Delaware…it’s pretty flat). 

This brings to mind something that I went through earlier this year.  In October or November I became a substitute teacher in the school district that my family lives near, which happens to be the school district from which I graduated high school.  I went through the motions to get hired.  Background check, TB test, etc.  Up until this point, I was really not nervous about being a substitute teacher, although subbing is really nothing like anything I had ever done before up until that point.  Then it came time to go in and get set up so they would call me and I can go online and see what jobs are open and take one….and then I set up my first job…and I started getting terrified.

What if the kids don’t listen to me?  What if the other teachers don’t take me seriously because I’m young?  What if the kids don’t take me seriously because I’m young?  What if I can’t control the class…what if one of them bites me or something?

Some fears were a little more reasonable than others, and I had plenty.  With a dad who had worked in the public school system for more years than I have been alive, and having heard many horror stories about how subs are treated these days, I could feel myself walking through a valley, and I could sense that shadow of death looming over me as I was cowering in fear.

I know this may seem like a small feat to overcome, but for me it was a really big issue, since I’ve never been really outgoing and am always super anxious about new situations..and a little paranoid.

Anyway, I was really starting to be filled with dread over this first job, although it was only a half day in a 2^nd grade class followed by a half day in a 1^st grade class.  When I thought about it I would feel sick to my stomach. 

Then one night when I was lying awake in my bed thinking about all that could go wrong on this first day and how I could possibly be able to deal with it, this verse flowed through my head.  Lying there clutching a pillow, I felt my mind gradually begin to relax.

“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

I started to realize that it really doesn’t matter how bad the situation gets, things are going to happen the way that they are supposed to happen, because in reality, I will never actually be in control; God will.  He will give me the solutions to any dilemma and the strength and wisdom to carry them out.  

“For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

God is always with me, anywhere I go, and so long as I let Him, He will guide me through the valley, and even if the shadow of death is there, whether it be in the form of some kind of physical danger, or just the fear of something new, I do not need to fear it.  God is my constant companion, and I don’t need to fear things because I know that if it is His Will, He will protect me.

My God is with me, I shall not fear.