I’ve always been a planner. I enjoy living my life within the confines of calendars and itineraries and lists. And I think it’s totally normal to want to cling to normalcy. We thrive in the familiar, in being a regular at your favorite coffee shop and old friends from our hometowns. Any time something remotely new or different from schedule comes into the picture, we tend to want to run and hide in my comfort zone.

I'm writing on this funny part of our lives we call the unknown not because I have found the light at the end of the tunnel but because I'm every bit as lost as you. Right now, with winter break behind me and the spring semester hitting me harder than the winter wind, I feel stuck as my world swirls and moves around me.

Nothing feels all the way like home, and so much feels temporary like it's made of cardboard. And believe it or not, I don't enjoy feeling lost and in the dark. I wish I had all of the answers, and I'm sure many of you can relate.

But God doesn’t think or feel the same way I do (honestly, I don’t like to imagine a world where that scenario is true). He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He sees past the pages of my planner and into an eternity. And He has something different to say about uncertainty.

In Isaiah 55, God says that “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” He is very aware of our lack of knowledge. But God also understands our need for security and familiarity. Psalms 40 promises that The Lord will make our steps secure. We aren’t the only ones who struggle with a fear of the future. Most of the bible is made up of the same template:

1. Person is called by God.

2. Person fears the future.

3. God says “do not be afraid”

4. Person trusts God and succeeds, and all is well until Israel messes up again. So in the same verse.

I could list example after example of times when God came through for His people in crazy insane ways. But I also know how you’re feeling. I know you hear it all, every mentor and pastor and friend saying, “It’s all going to be okay” and "It’ll work itself out in the end.” I know that stories don't fix the giant unknowns in your life.

I know how much it sucks to not know what’s coming next. Even God knows how much it sucks. I feel like right now my entire life is one season after another of confusion and messy, muddled paths.

But I think there is more to our uncertainty than just that awful, pit in your stomach, lost feeling we so often experience.

The panic that sets in when we worry about what the next chapter holds comes from a lack of trust in The One who is writing your story.

I don’t think God puts uncertainty in our lives to make us miserable or torture us, or simply for the fun of watching us run around in circles blindly through life. Yes, I think some of it is because our human existence makes it impossible for us to fully comprehend the entirety of God’s plans. But I think there is more to it than that. If we know it all, we don’t need any help, and again, a world where "I’m doing it all on my own" does not sound like a world I would get very far in.

So in a weird way, uncertainty is God’s gift to us. we weren’t meant to live in fear of it, although I think it’s okay to be in that place sometimes because life is terrifyingly new sometimes.

Uncertainty can also be freeing and exciting, in knowing that no matter what comes, there is someone else holding your life and your story.

So if you’re drowning in uncertainty right now, hear this: I know how you feel. I know you are terrified and don’t want to take a single step forward for fear of doing the wrong thing. I urge you to take notes from the heroes of the Bible who became heroes simply by taking a step.

And maybe, you can start to see uncertainty as more than just a scary word but instead as a new exhilarating adventure with a God who has the grandest of plans for you.