For five weeks this summer, recent UT graduate Chelsea Marcum will serve in the Middle East. Here’s what she has to say before boarding her plane.
God’s Plan, Not Ours
Thank goodness we are not the ones who decide what God will do in our lives and how he will work! In a week I will be in the Middle East helping an Austin family who now lives and works there. This, I promise you, is beyond anything I could have ever planned or even expected for my summer.
It’s unexpected, but it makes such beautiful sense when I consider all of my experiences in these past two years. From one afternoon Sophomore year, when I closed Don’t Waste Your Life (Chapter 5: Risk is Right—Better to Lose Your Life Than to Waste It) and felt my heart burn and tremble like it knew things that my mind didn’t yet, to holding a Perspectives certificate weeks before college graduation and asking God, “Why am I still plan-less? Why are doors closing?” I see a glimpse of how God uses everything, from major experiences to minor details, for the purposes of His perfect will.
As the story goes (and it has always gone, even before my story), God blessed me with that perfect will. Now I’m packing light for a trip across the world where I will encounter even more things that make my heart race and my mind go, “What?”
How Change Happens
I have a naughty habit of expecting my future (both immediate and long-term) to pan out exactly the way I decide it should. Nothing’s formulaic, but the cycle happens something like this:
- I feel God is doing something in my life. He’s teaching me new things in the Bible that I’m excited to apply. Something in my life is about to change—it must.
- I evaluate my life, look at my current opportunities to change it, and grab onto the first idea I come up with. The more radical, the better. “God,” I say, jumping up and down, “so this is what you’re doing!” Little, if any, sincere prayer is involved.
- Over time, my enthusiasm fades. I do not have the persistence or power to make my plan happen. I am confused, anxious and worrisome. I feel tired. I crumple at Jesus’ feet.
- Our Lord takes everything and makes it good. He does things that are more beautiful than I can bear. He shows me his plan, and it is incredible. I bow my head, and he guides me through it. Every step.
Our Lord is God above everything.
I’m only going to the Middle East for a short time, so maybe in six weeks I’ll be right back here, holding a college diploma asking God, “What now?” Hopefully I will be wiser and quicker to discern between God’s will and mine. But if I am an exhausted heap, please lift me up and remind me what God has done (in my life and yours). I will do the same for you, because we are family. We are all earnestly seeking God’s kingdom with our flawed ideas and strength, but since we have powerful, glorious Jesus, great things are at hand!
When my soul was embittered,when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
-Psalm 73:21-26
