My last semester of college, as graduation approached, I started experiencing extreme anxiety that kept me awake at night. I had no idea what to do after May. Up until that point, I always knew what the next step in my life would be, because it basically involved some form of school. Some might say the next step was to get married, go to grad school or get a job. The problem was that my boyfriend and I had just broken up, I was totally burned out on school and the idea of getting a desk job terrified me. I was lost, UNTIL I expressed my lost-ness to a friend and he said, “why don’t you go teach English in China for a year?” Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that!? I signed up and 6 months later was sitting on a plane to Beijing. And it turned out to be one of the greatest adventures of my life.
Flash forward 10 years. I’m 33. One might think I should have my life completely figured out by the age of 33; the problem is I don’t. I battle against anxiousness. I feel like I’m waiting for something but I don’t know what. Lately I've found myself starting to experience those same pangs of anxiety that plagued me before graduation.
Waiting for something is hard but I would venture to say that waiting and not even knowing WHAT you are waiting for is harder.
The difference between 23 year old me and 33 year old me can be pretty well summed up in one word: faith. I’m at a point now where I DO believe that God is with me and guiding me and has a plan for my future. 23 year old me? Not so much. In some ways this is comforting. In other ways? It’s harder. I can’t just run out with my ever expanding ways-to-conquer-the-world list and jump on the next plane across the ocean unless I feel like HE is calling me to do that.
(I did actually attempt to do that recently and felt the Spirit of God tell me overwhelmingly to STAY. OK God, got it!)
Maybe this is weird, but I think I suffer from missionary envy. I read about people like Katie Davis who moved to Uganda and adopted 13 orphan girls, or the people at Heartline in Haiti who run a maternity center for expectant Haitian women, or my friend Miranda who is teaching kids in the Domincan Republic, and I feel JEALOUS of them! Now THAT is excitement! Why can’t God give me a cool mission like that??
I could go serve somewhere overseas, but where? I could start a non-profit, but what kind? There are a lot of homeless people in Austin. I could start a homeless shelter. Maybe I should help the refugees. I started to feel suffocated by the overwhelming number of possibilities to serve.
I felt like God was telling me to think bigger. But what is bigger? I found myself asking, “OK God, I am staying, but what do you want me to DO?”
The answer was more terrifying than I ever could have imagined.
Nothing. Wait. REST in me. Spend time with me.
Eeeek! How can I do nothing? You need me! Oh. Wait. Scratch that.
I started to realize how much I have a tendency to cram every minute of my schedule with busyness. Granted, a lot of times it is “good” things like volunteering or taking classes at my church or going to dinner with friends. The problem is that it leaves very little time for resting in God, for spending time in His word, for praying, for listening, for TRUSTING.
I started to realize that maybe part of my motivation for wanting to start a homeless shelter or a non-profit or even adopt 13 Ugandan girls is because it would make me feel like I had accomplished something with my life. For years to come, people would remember me and say I had done good things. Maybe I feel like I can get things accomplished a little bit better and more efficiently than anyone else, including God (ouch). Maybe my to-do list keeps expanding because I don’t trust God enough to wait for Him to tell me what to do.
I started to realize that nothing I can DO- adopt a hundred orphans, build a dozen homeless shelters, travel around the world- you name it, will EVER bring contentment to my soul if I am doing it out of my own ambition and desire to make a name for myself. Because there will always be a more glamorous cause. There will always be more people in need than I can help. Maybe I should start a support group called “I’m here to help! Humanitarian junkies and their enormous egos.”
Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely love serving and volunteering and helping those in need. God calls us to do it. But He doesn’t Need me. He also wants me to remember that He is God, and I am not. There is a fine line between helping people with a genuine desire to make HIS name great, and a desire to make MY name great.
So what do I do? I remember that He is God, and I am not. I will rest and spend time in His word, and pray and listen. I will prioritize time in my schedule for HIM. And I will wait, resist the urge to DO and trust that He has a plan bigger than mine.
God has given me a season of very little distractions in my life so that I can focus all my energy and attention on getting to know Him and falling in love with Him in a way I never have before. It is a gift. I don’t know what the next chapter in my life is, but that’s OK. I know who is writing the story. I’m still praying that he will throw in a few adventures.
“He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.” - Psalm 46:10
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