Half-Year's Resolution

I read an article today from Relevant Magazine about needing a "half-year's resolution." Every New Year's we formulate a list of well-intentioned changes - things to add or subtract from our lives. We desire to make our lives fuller, better, healthier, more meaningful. But, inevitably, after a few weeks or months, our aspirations fall and fade. We say we'll try again next year and continue our unchanged lives.

So I began to think, what would my half-year's resolution be? Looking at my life right now, what do I need to be changing, how should I be living differently to better, to have a life more meaningful? While I could write a list spanning many pages of the things I need to change about myself and my life, one thing came straight to mind.

Cheesy and cliche as it truly sounds, I wish to live more in the moment, in the present. This desire is not of my own design, it is a lesson God is and has been teaching me in recent times, and one I am struggling to learn.

I'm a planner. I like to know what is going on so I can be prepared for it, often to a point that I am sure frustrates the people around me. I'm also a go-with-the-flow type, and these conflicting traits become very confusing at times. But I digress...

Recently my life has been full of unknowns and buckets of stress dumping down on my head and piling up on my shoulders. The great weight of this burdensome stress and worry has grown heavier and heavier. I try to dig myself out, clinging to the voice of God saying "trust Me, trust Me," but as my ears are covered by my stress and worry, the voice grows fainter and fainter.

I've started calling out to myself, seeking solutions in my own abilities and strengths. I've tried to fix it all myself, figure out what I'm doing after graduation, where I'll get money, how I'll pay off loans. The solutions don't seem to be readily apparent, and so my stress grows and I stop listening to the still voice saying, "trust Me, trust Me."

Consistently, God has continued to teach me to hear His voice and cry out to Him in my darkness. He is keeping my future unknown, teaching me to live in the present, be in the moment with Him. I don't know what I'm doing after college, but I know what I'm doing right now.

If all of my focus and attention is on the future, I cannot truly serve and love Jesus and those around me, and that is truly my heart's desire.

The future will come, and I should not be rushing into it, or even thinking about it. "Do not worry about tomorrow," such an important command from Jesus to His disciples, and one I am reminded of everyday when I look at the sparrow on my side.

If I'm constantly wondering what the future holds, I can't be here, I can't be now. And living is an active word.