It's your world, I'm just living in it...

I joke around with the [title] phrase when someone is running late (or worse, making me run late!) Obviously the world doesn't revolve around my friends, so it's kind of funny to remind them. 

Obviously.

At the end of the day, though, I'm not really sure if the way I live my life reflects the truth that the whole world doesn't belong to me. Maybe you can relate. 

We live in a chart your own adventure type of culture, where anything goes and everyone has the right (and expectation) to live for him/herself. 

Pinterest is littered with all sorts of feel-good quotes like this one:

Everything about this image screams, "Me, me, me!" We focus so much on choosing a career, choosing how we spend our free time, how we dress, relate to others, and just about everything else. Pretty much everything in our society warrants the freedom of choice. Speaking of which...

That's a buzz-word lately, as well.

::eye roll::

So really, it's not that far off if I were to walk up to you and say, "It's my world, you're just living in it!"

Everything I know to be true is subject to my experiences. So, subjectively, the world I am in -- my world -- is all about me, what I want, what I can get, "what I will make of myself," etc.

But that's not what the bible teaches.

This isn't our world. Living with free will isn't a right, it's a gift from God to live out His purpose and plan. So, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what my choices are. God calls me to choose to submit to His will.

Contrary to popular belief, we don't get to choose our destinies. God does. We don't get to make lists, schedules and 5-year plans. God does. Our designs and plans don't mean anything because we really have no control over the future. God calls us foolish for broadcasting our plans without including Him in the equation. James 4:13-16 says, 

"Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil."

We don't have authority over the plans that we make. We are just dust in the wind (which God created) for God's purposes. You know, here today and gone tomorrow. 

Over the past few months, as I'm applying to medical schools and graduate schools and such, I've realized that I really have no clue what the future holds for me. I've fallen into the habit of, when people ask me my future plans, saying, "Medical school, Lord willing." But I've come to realize that this statement is not only the truest answer I can give, it is also honoring to God. It's the way He commands me (and you) to respond. (See James 4:15) 

It gives credit where credit is due. Because, after all, it's His world, I'm just living in it.