God's Place for You

It has been awhile.

And I am sorry for that.

Boy has it been a crazy few months, almost six since the last time I have posted on here. In these six months I have left my teens, changed my major, grown into myself, made wonderful new friends, and grown in my faith.

 It has been a huge growing year for me.

Many lessons have been learned and many battles have been fought. Whether dealing with my excessive amount of schoolwork, struggling with the amount of responsibility I have in making sure my apartment is safe and clean, or keeping up with my extracurricular activities, it seems I never stop moving. But I am okay with that. I have learned that I enjoy being busy. Being busy means that I don’t have time to sit and overthink things.

In this busyness, especially this semester, I have been struggling with how to fit in spending time with the Lord. That being said, I have been trying so hard to be intentional in devoting some part of my day to the Lord, whether in prayer or by reading the Word.

To backtrack a little bit: in my last post, I talked about getting accepted into the College of Education. I also talked about my desire to become a Child Life Specialist. This semester, I began taking my Early Childhood classes and soon realized that teaching was not necessarily what I thought it was going to be. My plan was to go through with getting my teaching degree and then transition into becoming a Child Life Specialist. As I continued with my classes, I became more and more aware of what all I will have to do in order to graduate with a teaching degree...and none of that stuff will help me out in becoming a Child Life Specialist. I prayed a lot about it, as I am not good with change. And this would be a HUGE change. I finally decided to change my major and drop out of the education program. Although I am still in my education classes this semester, I am no longer considered to be in that major. I am very excited (and nervous) about what the future holds and cannot wait to start my classes next semester!

On the subject of decisions, the topic of Cru the other week was “How do I know what God wants me to do?” Alan, our campus director, talked a lot about God’s will which is something that I have always had a hard time grasping. He said:

It is the will of God…

·      That you be holy (1 Thessalonians 4:3)

·      That you be thankful in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

·      That you be obedient to His word (Psalm 40:8)

Overall, God’s will is about pleasing God. He cares more about who you are than what you do. This really hit home with me. A lot of times I tend to have debtor’s mentality, meaning that feel that I need to “pay” for all that God has done for me. Basically, this is gratitude gone awry. And I am all too guilty of it. I have been struggling with this since the beginning of the semester, which I think is why I would label this semester a “growing” one. I have been trying to focus more on who I am rather than what I do. And in focusing on who I am, I have really grown. It has been huge for me in my friendships and my life in general. In knowing who I am, a confidence of sorts has come out of that and really shown this semester.

A verse that has been huge for me in the past few weeks, and one that I wish I had known a long time ago, is 1 Corinthians 7:17.

“And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there. God, not your success, defines your life. Don’t think I’m being harder on you than on the others. I give this same counsel in all the churches.”

Where you are, wherever that may be, is exactly where God wants you to be. How encouraging is that? Even in the hard times, the times where you cannot see a way out or you struggle to see the good in the situation, God wants you there. And that is everything. So love that place, live well in that place, be happy in that place. Because to do anything else would be to not believe that God wants the best for you, to believe that God doesn't know what He is doing. And let me tell you, He sure knows what He is doing. And I for one cannot wait to find out what that will be. 

So I wait. And while I wait, I enjoy. Enjoy the present. Because to enjoy the present means to enjoy God's place. A place that is full of love and joy, even when it seems like there is none. 

I apologize for the messiness of this post. But I thought (and my mom thought) it was about time that I wrote one since it had been awhile. I hope you enjoy and I will definitely try and post more often.

Have a blessed week and weekend!