You Are Not Your Own

I am 21 years old, and still asking myself what I want to do when I grow up. As a senior, I’m soon actually going to have to find (or ad lib) an answer to that question. I feel like my life journey has brought me to the edge of a cliff and left me wondering where exactly to go next. Right now the temptation is to just jump off the edge and hope I land somewhere soft. But there has to be a better way….

Sometimes I wish there was just a map to life. A big part of me has just always expected that at some point I will be handed all the answers. At first I thought it would be high school graduation – choose a college, choose a major, and then suddenly your life path appears on the horizon. Or maybe at some point in college I would suddenly know which lucky guy friend I will end up marrying. But as of now, this has not become a reality, and I am starting to realize that maybe God doesn’t work that way. Yes, He calls us to be obedient, and to follow Him, but He sometimes leaves us in doubt as to what exactly that means. Like for instance, now, when we are standing on the edge of that precipice, looking out on the Rest of Our Lives.

There have been times when it should have been clear. I feel like there are a lot of examples in my life where I can look back and see a fork in the road, one marked “God’s will,” and the other marked “Danger! Danger!” But it is never that clear when you are in the midst of it. There is a fog of selfishness and sin that obscures the road sign and leads us happily down the wrong path.

In my case it was thinking that a relationship with a boyfriend was the most important thing in my life – worth sacrificing relationships with others and my relationship with God for. The lie was perfect because, of course, relationships are a good thing. I still think so. But small compromises, physically and spiritually, made me hide things: first from the people in my campus ministry, then from my close friends, then from God. I fled, like Jonah, to the least secure of all the places I could hide: my own heart.

This is how I walked away from where I know God was calling me. I knew I should have been taking time for others in my campus ministry, where I was on leadership, but I felt like I was the one who needed to be ministered to. God has me at college to minister to my friends and to work hard in my classes, and to live out the freedom of the Gospel on a campus that sometimes seems to be all about rules, but I was trapped in fear and guilt.

I can’t say that this understanding of his will for me is something that God proclaimed to me through one of His people, or that He told me in a dream. It comes from the calling that we all have to live openly before Him, confessing our sin so that we can have fellowship with God. It comes from being open with others and learning how to live in deep, honest relationship. But this calling will lead us to where we are supposed to go later on in life. If you are living honestly with God, you can perhaps follow the wrong path. But when you realize it, you fix your mistake, confess it to Him, and move ahead. It doesn’t have to cripple you.

God may have specific plans for you, like going on the missions field, or going into a specific career. But what He wants from you right now is just you. Give up your past and future to live now for Him, and He will guide you. God’s will might come as a map for the life ahead of you, but most likely it will come in tiny, bit-by-bit steps. He asks us to trust Him and just look at His face as He places our feet on firm ground.

So right now, when you feel like you’re standing on the edge of a cliff, God is probably building a bridge for you to cross. It may not look like the straight, solid bridge you might hope for, but He won’t let you fall. Even though you can only take one step at a time, God knows where you’re going, and He will show you where to place your feet.

Winter Conference has been in my life a place to stand convicted, to let God show you where you have slipped – but also a safe place to learn how to listen to God’s voice. It offers four days free from distraction, and teaching that will help you begin to trust God, step by step.