Fear, Fate and Our Father

I woke up today with this poster looking back at me from across the room:

In reality, I wake up to this poster every morning, but today the words really struck me.

There are so many unknowns in my future right now, and it's so tempting to step aside from what I know to be true about God in favor of hiding under my blankets like a scared child. You see, I don't know what I'll be doing next year. Come to think of it, I don't know what I'll be doing next summer, next semester, or even next week. I'm in that limbo between trusting God and panicking about my life, and I'm definitely toeing the line of the latter. 

That topic makes me recall a little bit about that CD that I have, and my whole music project endeavor. The lyrics to the namesake song read:

"I'm not falling, I'm not falling, 'cause even the rain stops sometimes. Still deciding, redefining, I know that there's more to this life of mine...this life on the line"

It's such a good reminder -- and even though I was in a very different mindset when I wrote that song than I am currently, the words are just as applicable. Facing a wide-open future, it feels like I'm at the edge of a cliff: I was following along the path, happy as a clam, and then all of a sudden it ended at a 500-foot drop. What I thought were the plans God had for my life maybe aren't? But that doesn't mean I'm falling, maybe it means I've been given an opportunity to stop and enjoy the view. I could panic about the fact that there's a sharp valley before me, or I could admire it's beauty.

That of course doesn't mean that there isn't a place for the pain I'm feeling, though. God is continually shaping and refining me to one day become the person He created me to be. I will never become that person by myself -- my sinful nature is like a step backward for every stride I make towards Christ's likeness. The pastor at my church discussed last week how struggle and suffering is one of the primary tools God uses to shape us, and for that hope we are to rejoice. 

Romans 5:3-5 reads, "3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

It sounds so backwards to rejoice in my current state of despair (I use that word lightly.) But what's really backwards is the fact that I feel hopeless at all. God is my reason for hope, and when I let his truth infiltrate every ounce of my being, soaking up His words like a dry sponge, joy and peace become the only logical state to be in. Why am I letting my fears determine my fate, when the course of my life was determined before the creation of the earth?

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.