Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
Anyways, about this time every year I reflect on the past year (as I was watching the NFL playoffs last Sunday, I thought to myself "man it's been a year since the Super Bowl." That's what triggered it this year...ha.) I think about what's happened and all that and wow...what a year it's been. I am literally in the very last place I thought I would be at this point. Last year over the break I was spending time up in the Seattle area and seriously considering moving up there to take a job on Young Life staff. Eventually I more or less decided to go, and was getting geared up for the seemingly impossible amount of money I had to raise. I knew God was bigger than money, though, and I knew if it was His plan for my life, then the money would come. I repeated Jeremiah 29:11 over and over and over again, and I was ready to tackle it. Then the rug was kinda pulled out from under me. I had decided to double major in Political Science and Liberal Arts. Liberal Arts consists of 3 minors, and I had chosen History, English, and Journalism. Everything was in order to graduate, or so I thought, and I went to commencement and walked and all that fun stuff. Then, two weeks later, I got a call saying I didn't actually graduate and I had to come back to retake a class I had made a D in. The worst part was that I got the call while I was at Young Life camp on what is possibly the most important day of the week - the day that the truth about our fallen human condition is presented.
"Welfare." The word in that verse confused me. What is welfare? Is it for my ultimate good? Is it something that is material? What exactly is it? Well, tonight as I looked at that verse I checked the footnote, and the word used in the Hebrew is "shalom." Peace. Not just the absence of conflict, but ultimate peace that only can stem from a relationship with God. Peace that surpasses all understanding. This is a concept I am just now learning as I reflect upon 2008.
The next few months were almost a complete blur. I spent the summer in Branson, Missouri, for Discipleship Focus, and though I was living in "community," I had never felt lonelier. Comparing it to DF the first time I did it as well as my incredible experience at Malibu the summer before was inevitable. I couldn't help but think about the community we had developed in Canada in just a few short days and wonder why the sense of community never developed over an entire summer, for me at least.
After I made it through that, I made the decision to stay in school for an entire year and get a second degree as well as finish up the first, which I am now on pace to do. The first degree is finally finished! The semester itself, though, was miserable. I felt even more alone than during the summer. Everything suffered - my relationship with others, my relationship with God (which was probably the reason for everything else suffering), my attitude towards school, Young Life, everything.
"Shalom" - the ultimate sense of peace that comes only from a relationship with God. The last two weeks or so of the semester were completely different. I began to read the Bible and focus on my relationship with Christ more, and as I focused on that relationship, my relationships with others began to develop. God also met some of the desires he had put on my heart when I began to look to Him to fulfill those desires instead of trying to fulfill them myself, which got...um...interesting. "Shalom." Even though I don't believe I am perfect - or anywhere close to it - I have recovered that sense of peace.
The Christmas/New Year's break was fantastic. A couple of great road trips, a huge bowl game, and a fantastic girlfriend later made this one of the best Christmas breaks ever. And now I find myself here, at 4:45 in the morning, thinking about the upcoming year. There are way more questions than answers:
Do I go on Young Life staff?
Do I go to seminary?
Where should I do either of those two options?
What should I do this summer?
What should I do job-wise this semester?
There are others, but those are most of the major ones. The wonderful thing is that I do feel this sense of peace. So, in a way, I'm in exactly the same place I was last year. And I guess I just need to ring in the New Year with a Bible verse:
Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
Shalom!
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