Our Twenties Are Not A Checklist.

I’ve watched as my friends sign their marriage certificates, gain college degrees, move to other states and countries.  There is a constant momentum of being twenty(one), consistently moving from goal to goal. Junioy year? Check. Senior year? En route.  Job secured? Husband? Housing?

I think it’s easy to assume a natural “life” progression, to assume that those automatically equate success or happiness or contentment.  But there’s something that’s been on my mind lately- that I hope, by the grace of God, that my twenties are not a checklist.  I hope I can define my success in my twenties by the fruit of my life- and I hope that the fruit of my life is that of a woman who loves, trusts, and adores Jesus.  I hope the fruit of my twenties is life-giving love and passion and work.  I hope that the fruit of my twenties is transformation and justice and restoration.  And, if any of that includes a husband and a house and perhaps a Masters degree including a job with full benefits, cool.  If not, life is still a marvelous adventure and our loving, gracious Father says that no good thing shall we lack. 

Nothing is inherently wrong with the progression of rites of passage- these are beautiful things.  But I don’t want to rely on those as markers of my journey.  Mary Oliver writes, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”  I want to learn to sacrifice hard things for the sake of others.  I want to love hard and wholly, and adventure bravely, and listen better.  Perhaps I’m just introspective because in the midst of my senior year, but I’m realizing the gravity of the choices that lie before me---and before you.  It may sound cliché, but I believe that if we dare allow God the opportunity to divinely open doors to us and to invade our meager acts of surrender with His love and power, nothing, I repeat, NOTHING He has put in our hearts to dream is impossible.

 

Yet in the midst of the planning and the dreaming and the doing, I’m also reminded that every season has an expiration date- and it is so crucial that we do not forget to savor the fruit of being and blooming right where He has us.  In our senior religion major Colloquium course, we had a discussion about vocation a few weeks ago with some professors. Dr. McEntire asserted, “Vocation isn’t a high-stakes treasure hunt.  Embracing your calling is learning to live into your life as who you are, wherever you are at.  As Frederick Buechner wrote, ‘The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.’  Live into what it means to be present, especially in relationships.  Vocation is not about putting food on the table.  Vocation grows in us our whole lives; it is not a job or a paycheck, but rather who you are called to be.”  Here Dr. McAbee took a moment to reflect.  “Stop trying to find God’s will.  Be God’s will.  Live in God’s will.  The Kingdom of God is within us, a present reality- live into that each day!  Sit wherever you are at in the presence of God.  That is enough.” 

Over the past few months, Psalm 27:4 has been a consistent billboard in my life, but I feel as though I’m just now learning to appreciate its implications.  Dwell with this for a moment:

“One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek:  that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.”

If there is anything I feel that our Father has been teaching me as of late, it is to be content.  To stop seeking security in my plans and to-do lists, but to abandon it all in the trust that He will provide as I pursue His heart in all its beauty.  Because here’s the clincher- HE is our ultimate good, our ultimate love, our ultimate wholeness.  Nothing apart can satisfy us as He can and does.  He is a good Father who gives good gifts.  We shall have no want- because He provides. After all we’ve come through, how do we still not yet trust Him? Why do we grasp so ferociously to control? What does all of our worrying and striving accomplish?

Now abiding in His presence- gazing on His beauty- THAT is contentment, rest, trust, peace.  When we learn to abide in trust in Him, content to love Him better and know Him more intimately, our entire being will be transformed to bear such fruit.

All this to say, I’m learning to be content with the mystery, with the unknowns, with the desires and longings.  He is more than enough.  What could possibly be more worthwhile than seeking and loving the One who never fails to continually pursue and love us, and from that, offering the same healing, redemption, and wholeness to others?

I pray we all take a moment to mute the noises and haze of life to gaze upon His beauty and assess what we truly want to look back a year from now and see as the fruit of our lives.

YOU are dearly beloved! Dream big, pray big, adventure big, hope big, love [God and those you daily encounter] big- love is verb.

barefoot in the kitchen of grace.

Today is Easter. There is a message that has been sitting in my inbox for days, a sweet little German voice asking me when I’m coming back.  Sometimes it requires much more faith to stay instead of to go. This message is from Ricarda, a precious girl I met last summer when I interned with a ministry in Berlin.  It’s been quite a while since I last wrote, nearly nine months--- mostly because it’s difficult for me to really digest the journey of this past year, the jolt of being submerged in a foreign culture for three months alone then suddenly being thrust, in less than a few days, back into life in Nashville.  So often in our walk with Jesus we’re told to “Go and make disciples of all nations,” to go on mission trips, to go to college, to go to work.  And while therein lies, most assuredly, a bit of risk-taking and faith, sometimes I think it take a whole lot more gumption and faith to stay rooted in one place, in one season, fully committed to the heart of the Lord in that time.

When I lived in Germany last summer, I spent an absurd amount of time wishing I was here, wishing myself out of the beautiful opportunities God had placed before me to grow and to love and to serve and to learn to trust Him more fully.  It’s easy to wish ourselves out of seasons too, vicariously living in future relationships and circumstances.  Once, when I was praying with my best friend about a year ago, I had this vision of a large room filled with a feast and festivities.  In this room was a window to the next room, but the adjacent room was dark and I was unable to see in. Curiosity burned within me, to know the happenings within the other space, so I desperately peered through the keyhole. Suddenly it was as if Father God tapped me on the shoulder, gently refocusing my gaze on the opportunities He had presently placed before me.  “Don’t lose sight of the victories and blessings that I’ve placed before you in this season, in this room. You’re needed in the current battle.” 

So often we wander, searching for the “right relationship” or the “right opportunity.”  But few things come ready-made.  To embrace the challenge of commitment, the commitment of trusting the Father’s heart and providence and timing, demands faith.  A story that my best friend Betsy and I have grown to cherish is that of Moses in Exodus 17.  The Amalekites (a.k.a. the enemy) came and were attacking the Israelites, and instead of engaging in battle, Moses sent Joshua into battle while he went up to the top of the hill (strange, right?).  Moses held his hands up, and as long as he held his hands in that position of worship and trust, the Israelites were winning; but whenever his hands grew weary and he lowered them, the Amalekites were winning.  It got to the point that he had to sit on a stone while Aaron and Hur (his best bros) physically held Moses’ hands up, one on each side, so that his hands remained steady until sunset.  That is how the Israelites won the battle.  Beautiful imagery of bearing one another’s burdens and encouraging each another to keep our eyes focused on Christ.

I guess He’s just really been revealing to me that we’ll never ‘get the hang of it’ (faith, life, etc.).  He doesn’t give us dreams or destinies that are attainable of our own strength, because He wants to be the One who lovingly nurtures those to fruition with us, offering us the opportunity to take a hold of Him.  When we take a hold of Him, we take a hold of Strength, Providence, Hope…everything. It’s our willingness, not our perfection, which enables us to be useable by God in His sweet, glorious plan of shalom. 

That’s been a major word in my heart lately.  It’s not just some Amish slang word, but rather a beautiful Hebrew word in the bible that means "universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight,”---essentially, perfect restoration.  That’s the dream of the Father’s heart for us.  And that is what our dream should be for others.  Every person we encounter is a dream of God’s heart.  Think about that. The person that drives you crazy in class or at work or in traffic?  That’s a fallible human that is indeed here because God treasures them as a dream.   I think about how much I protect my own dreams, and I’m learning that I should hold God’s dreams (i.e. people) just as dear. 

Though the transition of the past nine months has been challenging, Jesus said His heart was to seek and to save the lost. And as He’s quickly revealed to me, the lost aren’t just those being sex-trafficked in major European cities, they aren’t just the starving in Africa, they aren’t just the broken kids in the inner city…“the lost” is composed of every single dream of God’s heart that has not come to fruition and shalom wholeness in His love.  People we encounter every. single. day. 

In the midst of these revelations, I’ve also been realizing that even if we were never loved by any other human, but allowed our Father to love us wholly, that would be more than enough.  He is the ultimate Good; and when we have Him, we lack nothing. As it says in Psalm 16:2, “my goodness is nothing apart from You.”  I think that’s why Jesus was able to fulfill His destiny in spite of persecution, attack, and trials---because He defined Himself by the Father’s heart, and not by people’s opinions of Him.  He didn’t strive to impress, to be winsome, but rather in a humble and real, raw nature, went about releasing a Love that brought about healing, wholeness, delight, and restoration.

I think the reason we are called to rejoice in everything is because of Who is with us and Who is for us. Paul and Silas could rejoice even in the midst of prison because they recognized and rejoiced in the One who was and is ever-present.  So whether we are in a season of sowing or reaping, an environment of warfare or rest, our Father is always with us, always purposing every moment with the wealth of heaven. Whether the odds seem high or low, the cross still stands…no matter WHAT.  We are called to live from this place of victory, because Jesus has already won it for us.  He's already equipped us to be vessels of the shalom life He claimed through the cross.

So, this is where I am. In His typical fashion, I feel like God has brought this full-circle in me at Easter, this perfect and beautiful time to find myself in this ragtag band that is His Kingdom--- this jumbled, dancing community of grace.  I don’t have everything figured out in this world or in my life, but I do have Him.  And He is always enough, no matter what. 

He is every step ahead of us, in every moment.

Hallelujah to Jesus, who continually makes all things new. :)

-Megan

"Jesus was so full of love to His Father and love to us that that love never failed to accomplish its purpose."  ~Smith Wigglesworth