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.