I remember being in Mrs. Haye's kindergarten classroom and telling the whole world, or anyone who would listen, that I was going to be a doctor, have four kids, three dogs, a fish tank that covered a whole wall. I would go to college where my mom did, and meet the love of my life around campus and be the smartest and most admirable 20-year-old to walk the face of the earth. The truth of the matter is that very few, if any, of these things, are true to this day.
We spend so much of our lives planning for tomorrow or ten years from now. If you would have told me, in the corner of the tree house built into my classroom (which left me shocked to find not all classrooms have jungle gyms inside of them) that I would be 20 years old, at a small liberal college, no kids, no dogs, no wall covered in a fish tank, across the country from my mom's alma mater, wearing gym clothes and a messy ponytail to class every day, I would let you know that you were greatly mistaken (and probably spit on you or something because I was serious a disastrous child).
We try to shape each and every day of our lives to fit a mold that we want to follow. What we want and what God intends are often two very very different things. No matter how hard we try to plan our days, they will not follow what is expected. I thought yesterday would be full of adventure. I ended up sitting in a bathtub shaped chair doing calculus homework for hours in order to be ready for the exam this week. We have a purpose, a bigger plan than what is scribbled in our planners or embedded in Google Docs. If we stop for just one second to realize no matter what we do, we have no control of where the future takes us, we can see the world in a completely different perspective.
Good things end: whether it be tomorrow or 2 years from now or the day that we die, nothing of this world lasts. I know that sounds extremely cynical and morbid, but it is actually encouraging. All we are promised is the exact moment we are in. We are promised now. We are promised the purple flowers on the sidewalk and the nagging bosses and the sunset over the mountain and the barking dogs in the middle of the night. Now is all that is definite.
Why do we complicate things so much? Why do we try to plan the future and the days to come? Wake up every single morning and ask "God, what do you want to do in my life today?" and then do it. Nothing else matters. What other people think, how complicated it will make the next few days, where it will take you, what it means for tomorrow: all of those things are irrelevant. Wake up every day and do what makes you happy. There will be people who do not approve. There will be people who try to belittle you or make you feel lesser. STOP CARING. All of these things that are stopping us from living are things of this world, not of His Kingdom. Wake up every morning and take life one step at a time: live day by day.
