The future. Dun dun dun dun. I've noticed something, people in the United States are obsessed with the future. In Elliot's words, "That seems to be every adult's favorite question."
You hear it all the time. What are you going to be when you grow up? What do you want to do with your life?
Kids hit ninth grade and it is a cultural expectation that a whole bunch of fifteen-year-olds figure out the plan for their entire lives.
That just doesn't make sense. Why? Why do you need to know what you're going to do in high school?
Don't get me wrong, planning ahead is good. Having dreams and the motivation to reach your goals should be encouraged, but there is a consequence to our culture's goal-oriented mindset. There is a huge overlooked problem in the lives of teenagers and young adults today. There is a dilemma in schools and youth groups across the country. When we emphasize the necessity to go to college, the necessity to succeed scholastically, and the necessity to know in advance how the next ten years of your life are going to play out,
we forget that we are not the ones planning our lives at all.
When we focus on taking all the logical steps to reach our careers, we forget that maybe Jesus is calling us somewhere else.
Responsibility is a good thing.
So be responsible Christians. Make sure you're walking on the path Jesus has laid out for you.
The problem with a society that pushes every child towards scholastic and academic achievement is simply that we failed to consider that perhaps not every child was created to go to college and to work in an office or a classroom. We failed to see the complexity of God's plan, the beauty of His creator's mind.
This world would be terribly boring if everyone decided to become doctors, lawyers, and accountants.
And how dare we underestimate the Lord's wisdom and power by constricting every individual to requiring further academic training to achieve their dreams and passions. I believe that Jesus is perfectly capable of training up artists and singers and even businessmen without a university's input.
That being said, I believe that universities were allowed by the Lord for the purpose of being utilized in His plan to train people and impart knowledge on students.
Colleges and universities are good. But there is a twist:
A university's great societal benefit lies in the manner in which the Lord uses it to shape His children's lives and train them up in specific directions for the purpose of fulling His plan for humanity as a whole.
A university's great downfall is not in the university itself but rather in society's tendency to place the importance of attending a university above God and thus creating yet another idol.
Higher education is a God-given gift and we must never forget that it is indeed God's to do with what He chooses for each of His own children individually. All this being said, this is my current plan for the next year:
I'm going to a university.
But, for the first time in my life, I'm not going to a university because it is what society expects me to do, what my teachers expect me to do, what I expect myself to do, what my friends expect me to do, or what my family expects me to do, but rather because it is the next step that God has called me to do.
When I came on this trip I could not decide what to major in. I figured that by the end of this year I would have made up my mind. Actually, I now know less of what I want to major in than I did at the end of high school. But Jesus as taught me this:
What I do does not matter. How I live is what matters.
And I do not need control. I do not need the security of have a ten year plan, a five year plan, or even a two year plan. When I let go of needing to know every detail of how my life is going to work, only then can I say that I have completely placed my trust in the Lord. That I have completely surrendered myself to His plan for my life. To His control.
So when I get home at the end of June I will be going back to the orphanages that I fell in love with in Nicaragua for two weeks. After that, I'll be hanging around Spokane for most of the summer to the best of my knowledge.
In the fall I will be attending Whitworth University for the rest of the year and will be attending in an undecided major.
Then January through May I will be going to a country that Jesus called me to before I even decided to go to Whitworth and I will be studying abroad in Costa Rica for those five months. I am beyond excited that this coming year includes so much time in Central America living with the people group I have the biggest passion for. Truly the Lord does know my heart.
Through all of these tentative plans that I am open and willing for the Lord to change at any time He deems necessary, my ultimate goal is that wherever my future leads, Jesus will be the center of it and the sole purpose I'm alive will remain to simply glorify His name.
As I explore ministry, writing, and international business majors as well as Spanish it is my hope that Jesus will use this training to prepare me for the plan He has for my life.
This trip may be coming to a close, but this isn't the end it's just the beginning.
