Are You Ready...?

Are you ready?  We're asked this a lot - heading out the door, making important phone calls, getting around for a formal event.

Maybe we're asking ourselves the same question, only more frequently.

Am I ready...?

Ready for the beginning of the semester, to start a new job, embrace the distanced family member, start a study group, or raise a child?  Ready to relocate to chase God's dreams for your life, ready to start your business, or find a way to survive in less than great circumstances?

We each face our own questions, and some may seem too daunting to try and think through.

What if it doesn't work out?  What if I've mistaken God's call on my life, or can't find what I need to do this...?

I'm sure sometimes your mind swims like mine can.

Someone asked me at the start of this year what my long-term plan is.  Two, three, five years out.  To be honest, I had no words.  My first thought was "I can't believe people do that."

I believe in holding a loose grip on your life - that if you're going to try to hold onto the world at all, make sure you're just holding it gently enough to hand it back to Him.  And yes, I am guilty of not doing this.....yet I make it my aim.

I detest making plans on my own terms (good grief, how are they supposed to stand on their own two legs?!).  I would much rather let God direct me from year to year, trusting the actions I must take to be revealed to me as I go.  Yes, this may not seem like the most "steady" plan.

I decided to adopt that approach at the beginning of last year.  The events, opportunities and connections that have transpired since then astound me.

At the start of the spring, I found myself wary regarding the paths He set before me.  I knew these concerns were futile, foolish even.  Yet they persisted.

I know I have no reason to question what God has brought about.  Perhaps if the directions my life is taking were of my own invention, I would have had reason to doubt - a bit of an inkling as to how things were going to pan out.

But my life is far, far beyond my control.  Praise Jesus.

I find myself back at home again after an incredible summer (which I simultaneously have so many words, and yet no words for) for a season of local ministry, for classes and work schedules and all the good stuff that makes up the fall season.  Including some of my favorite things... such as pie and sweaters.  But also the start of the Bible Quizzing season(!), hosting practices each week and coaching kids on how to memorize and understand what we're learning as we work through Mark, Hebrews, 1st and 2nd Peter.  I feel honored to be a part of this once again.

There is something so positively beautiful in learning to follow when you're not sure you're ready.

Because, maybe you're not.  But as a friend of mine said one morning this summer, "The weight of it is on the Lord, not on us."  God will not call you to action without leading you in battle.  We will do what He asks of us, and the results are on Him.

He's ready, so what will you choose?