Thursday, March 5, 2009

Patience vs. Patients

Patience (self-control)
Patients (clients of a doctor)

I had a word usage test today. Word usage is all about using the right word at the right time. I think I did well. I like writing. I like editing. I like photography. I like Jesus. I like traveling (traveling has ONE "l" not two. I missed that on my spelling test).  I would really like to know how God is going to use all of these avocations of mine in my future. Thus patience, the self-control kind, is really a tough concept for me to grasp right now. Some days, I would love to be back in the time when I had everything planned- I was going to be a veterinarian. I knew what to do and when to do it, and I knew I could go anywhere with that job. The problem came along when I completely lost my passion for veterinary medicine during my freshman year and capitalized on my lifelong obsession with the technicalities and the art of the English language. So not practical. So not an easily planned career path, and lately my mind is screaming at me, "What are you doing???" 

Alas, my heart and my soul trump my head, and I'm actually extremely grateful for that. I know I'm on this path for a reason, and I am a firm believer that God gives us talents and passions to show us his will for our lives. I've heard some people say "don't follow your dreams, follow God's!" This is a true statement, but from what I've experienced, God doesn't really rip away our dreams and throw them into the trash can, but rather, he changes them (if we're open enough to allow him to). When we cling tightly to our goals and plans is when God must painfully remove them from us and we must learn to adjust to his plans for our lives. If we are in open communication with God, and are truly willing to submit to his authority, he begins to change our hearts willingly. We wonder what our dreams ever were in the first place, and we find ourselves loving something (or someone) we never could have imagined.  

My problem often lies when I look behind or ahead of me. I am content when I'm thinking about today, but the thoughts of what could have been and what will be terrify me when I give them a second thought. God is very much a God of the present. We've been talking about that a lot on Tuesday nights at BCM lately, and it has struck me as something I've never given much consideration to in the past. I don't want to worry my life away (sounds like a Jason Mraz song to me...), and I am making a conscious (maybe not natural, but conscious just the same) effort to just let go of the future as well as the past, and take to today for what it is. God is not a God of confusion. He is the artist of the Big Picture, and I'm just a speck of paint on his canvas. It all makes sense to him.

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