As people try to get to know you, they’ll often want to know what your five-year plan is. What they’re really asking is, “what are you passionate about?”, “What makes you tick?” and as much as I love to find that out about people, when the question comes back around to me, I struggle.
I knew I wanted to do something that will grow, encourage, strengthen or help people, but I didn’t have a specific career path to help people in the best way I possibly could. I would plead with God, saying “why won’t you tell me where you want me to go!” and it would always come back to, “just work at what’s in your hands.” So, I have been.
I found it difficult to believe I was doing everything I could. I thought that the life God was giving me was too insignificant. “I want to change the world! But I’m here.” But I had to keep remembering, “just work hard at what’s in your hands.” And slowly, this urgency and frustration with not knowing my 10-year life plan has dwindled.
Trusting the promise
I’ve learnt what it means to actually trust God with not just my day-to-day but with all the future He has for me. I remind myself of who God is. He is always faithful, His plans for my life are to prosper me. If I really trust that that promise is true, how does that mean I live my life?
I’ve recently become hooked on an online scrabble game, ‘Words with Friends’. When playing this game there is a ‘hindsight’ option that you can use after you play a word that shows you what word you could have played to get the highest points. It ends up being quite frustrating knowing that there was something great you could have done, and you’ve missed that opportunity.
My goal is always to click that button after playing a word and see, ‘Hindsight not available: you played the best word’. It’s such an, I’ll admit small, but an accomplishment none the less because I know that whatever I did, it could not have gone better.
When I look at that silly example of a scrabble game and reimagine that scenario for my own life, it has the potential to stress us out (as it has for me many times before). Will this job be the best job for me? Will this opportunity set me up for my future? Will this promotion derail my future? Have I missed my chance at becoming something great?
Trusting the freedom
This stress is hugely larger than a silly scrabble game, and sometimes the pressure of making the right choices at the right time ends up stopping us from living the free life that God’s actually given us. We aren’t meant to live our life in fear of the future, we aren’t meant to live our life constantly questioning our fate – no!
If God dresses the ground we walk on, if He feeds even the crows of the earth, how much more so has he got our lives planned to the T. God’s got a calling, a destiny, a purpose for your life. It’s teaching yourself to trust that, that’s going to propel you to a full, free life.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understandings; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (proverbs chapter 3, verses 5-6)
I can relax and know that so long as I’m taking the life that God gives me as the best move possible, by the end of my life, I’ve lived the most impactful, the most blessed, the most powerful life I could have lived. God doesn’t settle for second best. He loves me, with an unconditional, unexplainable love. Even if it looks like the ‘word I’ve played’ or the day I’ve had or the year I’ve been through has been a lot less than the best, I always know that God loves me too much to let me live a less than the best life.
Hillsong Young & Free released a song titled ‘Hindsight’ in their 2018 album and the lyrics write, “My hindsight says I can trust Him with what’s next, for the God I know is known for faithfulness.”
This is something I’ve got to continually make sure I know. It makes it so much easier for me to not compare my life, the stage of life I’m in, the job I’ve got, the family I have, the house I’ve bought – because although it’s different to someone of the same lifestyle, it’s uniquely the best life I could live.
Trusting God with my life is more than knowing that He will look after me, but it’s whole-heartedly believing that the life I have to live is designed to reach people, to love God, to live free.
“To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfil every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Thessalonians chapter 1, verses 11-12)
Rochelle Ross lives on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. She loves people, the moon, dirty food and Jesus and is very passionate about seeing young people know the love of God. She works as a Plastering Assistant during the week and a Personal Assistant to the youth pastors and is eager to learn, love and share people’s stories and her own life lessons.