All of us, at times, just want to be assured everything is going to turn out alright. There is, indeed, a lot to worry about in the world. This is especially true for a person in his or her early twenties such as myself.

Will I realize my professional dreams and goals? Will I ever have financial security and financial independence? Will I ever own a house and, if so, then where? Will I ever meet a lifelong partner and get married? I am sure these are all questions we have internally posed to ourselves. I certainly have.

Luckily, there are many people out there wanting to assuage these fears, worries, and doubts. I love stumbling across articles catered to those of use with uncertain hearts, hoping I will find ingrained in the writing a useful piece of wisdom or, in the very least, some assurance my life will not be a total nuclear disaster.

I will admit though I find myself a little personally disappointed when such articles begin to talk about “God’s plan” or make some other religious, typically Christian, reference. I am not disappointed by these articles themselves because every person has the right to their beliefs and I understand these articles are written for a specific subset of people who find joy and purpose in their religion.

However, I myself am no longer religious and I am nearly certain there are other non-religious people, and people of other faiths besides Christianity, who still want hope for their future and an understanding of why things are happening in their lives the way they are.

Fortunately, it is my personal conviction you do not need a religious system (though you can certainly have one) to have this kind of faith, hope, and understanding.

You do not need a complete set of formulaic religious beliefs regarding how the world works in order to have assurance the world will work out for you. You can believe in fate or in the plan of a deity or in the blueprint of the universe without going to church or behaving strictly according to religious laws.

For me, this kind of mindset has been really helpful especially since leaving evangelical Christianity. I am not sure I believe in wholesale fate or in a great universal plan. After all, there is so much suffering and inequality in the world I have difficulty accepting the belief everything which happens is supposed to happen. Even still, in examining my own life, I can see there were a lot of once-confusing, or frustrating, events which only now, in hindsight, make sense. I do have a kind of faith all these events in my life were perhaps supposed to turn out this way even if they were so unexpected at the time.

For those who are looking for reassurance in a confusing or uncertain period of their life, especially those people who do not have firm religious beliefs or have religious beliefs different from Christianity, I would like to inclusively say I do have faith you are going to be okay. Obviously, there is nothing any of us can guarantee but I really do think we need this kind of assurance and hope to keep us going.

You can still find a love of your life even if that person is not a person you think “God made” for you. You can still find your passion, career-wise especially, and believe said passion is serving a greater universal purpose if the purpose is not religious in nature. You can still believe and hope the universe is on your side even if you do not believe in a god or in a strictly Christian god.

No matter where you are, or who you are, you can have faith in your own life and the life of others without a strict religious faith.