Tag: God

Finding Joy in My Path

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“A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” – Proverbs 16:9

Today I had my last class ever at the University of Iowa. Next week, I will face finals and then I will graduate with my Bachelors in Political Science.

I’m looking at my cap and gown hanging on the wall as I write this. I’m thinking about seventeen when I graduated high school, and how fast those years went by…from community college, to becoming a certified nursing assistant, changing my major a million times, transferring to the University of Iowa, working on several campaigns, being an intern, traveling the country, and so much more.

It was a roller coaster, but I made it, and the changes to come are sweeping me away.

Away from Iowa. Away from the only place I have called home.

It’s strange how nothing changes and then everything changes all at once. Your heart tugs you different places and makes all these plans, but then God directs your steps, despite if it doesn’t make sense or it’s not what you want.

He is leading me down this path that is scary and excited at the same time and all I can do is trust Him and have patience.

I pray that I find joy in my path though.

Every decision I have made in life has been calculated, weighted, stressed over, reevaluated, back and forth, yes and no.
Don’t do this because it doesn’t make sense. Do this because it looks good. Make these decisions based on what people will think of you. Don’t do what you actually want to do because people will judge you.

Maybe it’s because I am always thinking about what others will think of me and I let let my fears and anxieties rule me, that I forget to trust Jesus…and to find joy in my path.

My path of life. My career path. My relationships.

I worry, over excessively. I make myself miserable to the point I cannot stand myself.

I woke up and I wasn’t seventeen anymore, starting college. I let these years past by stressing about money, trying to make all the right choices, working overtime while going to school full time.

I woke up at 22 realizing that I let it slip through my fingers. The joy I could have had in learning and thriving, but I didn’t. I let my joy slip through my fingers far too often. I stumped my growth to the point that when my senior year came around, I could not care less. I was tired and worn thin.

But now I’m graduating.

I don’t have all the answers in life, nor what the Lord has in store for me as I go on this new path. I just know that if I do not find joy along the way, no matter what path I’m on, I will be disheartened, miserable, and worn by the end.

So I’m trusting God as I walk this new path, that no matter what comes my way, I will face it with a spirit of grace, joy and, most importantly, peace.

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” – James 1:2-4

 

le libre arbitre

Credit: zsaszsavellagio.blogspot.com
Credit: zsaszsavellagio.blogspot.com

Life comes in perspective every time a tragedy like the one seen in Paris happens.  My memory becomes a bit hazy when it comes to 9/11…seeing as I was only 5 when it happened, but I still remember the cold hand of fear grasping at me. It comes over me right now…but it’s matured enough to not send me into a flood of hysteric tears.  I don’t feel safe tonight.  I don’t feel safe in the United States, nor anywhere else in the world…not even in my own little awkward corner, where most of the events that shake my little world are bad grades, indecisions and college tuition.  How pointless are those things? When Paris was suppose to be safe, but it’s not anymore.  Paris is suppose to be the city of romance and champagne, but instead of champagne there is blood spilled on the cobbled stone streets.

For what? It’s nonsensical, and it never will be make sense.

Many scholars speak of the problem of evil and try to find an answer to it.  Tony Judt worried how we as a people will become desensitized to evil over the course of time;  like the Holocaust and when the generation who remembered are no longer in existence, and the those who only read about it in history textbooks are left, we are distend to repeat history.   We must ask how a human can mercilessly kill another helpless human being.  The problem of evil is how to reconcile its existence with that of a God who is all loving and all good.

As Christians we look at the Bible and see the very beginning: God created the world and everything in it, including the first man and woman, Adam and Eve.  He created the Garden of Eden and also the tree of good and evil.  How can God, who is not evil, allow evil to exist?  God could have made a world where evil didn’t exist, but then as Billy Graham puts it “it would have been one of robots and puppets–creatures that could not love Him or anyone else.” In order to love, we must have the freedom to so do.  In order to be good, we must be morally free.  In order to choose God, we must have the free will to make that choice.

“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things” – Isaiah 45:7

God created evil for a purpose, and in the end it will bring Him glory in that of His plan of salvation.  Jesus was glorified in His death and in His resurrection, and will be again in His second coming.   God is the Author of our salvation and in Him we have hope for eternity in Heaven.  But He demands to be chosen and that is why He gave us the freedom to choose.

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can’t. If a thing is free to be good it’s also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata -of creatures that worked like machines- would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they’ve got to be free.
Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (…) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will -that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings- then we may take it it is worth paying.” – C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity

I love how C.S Lewis states that God thought our free will worth the risk of going right or wrong. Because it makes our redemption so much sweeter and glorifying to Him.

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

“You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety.” – Job 11:18

Tonight we pray for Paris, for the families of the victims and the state as a whole, and all the other countries effected by this evil.

“It is not by strength that one prevails; those who oppose the Lord will be broken. The Most High will thunder from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.” – 1 Samuel 2:10