Today is the last day of my junior year of high school as well as the last day of my first year of college.
It seems and feels just like any other day.
Cold, dreary, wintry, yet spring is in the air.
On this day, a day like so many others, something new is arising.
In the next three years I will graduate from high school, then graduate from college, and turn 18 somewhere in the mix of things.
Then what?
All of a sudden the unknown is set before me and I stare into the abyss.
But I am not afraid.
I know that in those three years, much change will come. God will move like never before, and lives will be changed, quite possibly even mine. But I am not afraid. I am not afraid of the unknown; of the thought of the many possibilities of what the future may hold. God has a plan and I know that it is to prosper me and not to harm me. I also know that the big things that I can barely see myself achieving are the stepping-stones to what God will have me do in the future. He will have me speak when I would rather stay silent. He will have me run when I would rather sit down. He will have me persevere so that I do not lack anything.
At church this past week, my youth pastor assigned the passage James 1:1-8 to my group. As I was reading that passage, it became so clear to me why hardships come. As I sat there thinking back on all the things that have happened in the past: death, injuries, hardships, it was suddenly so clear as to why God allows those things to happen.
God has a plan. A good pleasing and perfect plan, but we have to allow our eyes to be open to see it.
James 1:2-8 says,
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
This is what I want to live out in the next three years to come. I want to look at trials with pure joy. I want to persevere through the testing of my faith. I want to be mature and complete, not lacking anything. I want to believe and not doubt. And I want to stand firm in the solid foundation.
The next three years will bring change and hardship as well as good times too. As I face the closing to an opening, I will walk forward with confidence.
