My email inbox has never been refreshed so many times in one day. Phone calls that turn out to be from telemarketers seem unusually cruel this morning. I keep searching for hints on Instagram. I’m in that glorious yet excruciating state of anticipation, waiting to hear if I’m going to be going on a specific trip this year or not.
I applied after much deliberation, knowing based on previous year’s participants that I’m sadly outclassed in the achievements department, and knowing that if I go, I want it to be because it’s part of God’s plan and in His timing, not because I’ve forced it or idolized it. If I don’t go, my year will still be rich, full of opportunities and wonderful people and events. I’m content with God using the application alone just to teach me something, and I’m ok if the choice to step out in faith and apply ends up being the only part of my story involving this trip. More importantly, if I do go, I have to allow the people and trip to be what it will be and take it as it comes, and not build up expectation or set myself up for disappointment if it doesn’t go as smoothly as I’d hope.
Life-changing is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot. If you want to go down the butterfly effect-esque rabbit trail, choosing a breakfast cereal for the day is life-changing. In the greater scope, certain events certainly have the potential to change our life’s course in a relatively short amount of time. In my own experience, however, even the grand dramatic moments have a trail of tiny decisions and events and thoughts and influences lingering behind them, like steps in dewy grass, subtle but weighty. No “life-changing” moments happen without weeks of the ordinary, the mundane, the seemingly small decisions, the “chance” encounters, the influences we allow daily.
So if this one desire, that I believe and pray is one God has placed in my heart, comes to fruition, it will not be “life-changing” in the sense that something unexpected will be realized or decided on this trip. It will simply be another Ebenezer stone that God can etch into my memory to mark a high point in a string of His guiding influences and steps, one of a million inches between the womb and becoming the perfect image of a holy God, loving perfectly and abiding constantly with Him in eternity. If right now the answer to this desire is a no, I can trust that there is a good reason. That the no might be just for this season. The no might be because otherwise I will have to turn down a different plan that will be better for my own abiding. I have to trust that the one who says no, does not deny us any good and perfect gifts, so if it’s a no, it wasn’t for my good and it wasn’t the perfect timing needed. And if this trains me to realize that truth a bit more? It’s worth my perception of loss.
He can be trusted with the desires of our heart. If we are abiding in Him, He’s the one putting them there. We can pray for wisdom for what to do with them, how to hold them lightly. A good desire can be turned bad simply by holding onto it and seeking it too fiercely. I know a lot of current cultures says ‘don’t let anything come between you and what you want’ but I think that’s immature and unbalanced and short-sighted. It just creates fear, dissatisfaction, exhaustion. I want the opposite. I want the “yoke (that) is easy and (His) burden (that) is light” (Matthew 11).