“Where you at school?”

“Geneva College.”

“What’re you studying?”

“Christian Ministries”

“That’s wonderful. What year are you?”

“I’m in my senior year.”

“Oh, that’s great. What’s next?”

“We’re…uh….working on that.”

What you read above has become a familiar conversation in the last several months. If you’re like most other college students out there, you’ll face this question sometime in your life – whether it’s graduating high school, trying to get your kids to graduate high school, or some other so-called “stage” in life. It’s such a great question to ask, but a terrifying one to find yourself in a position of answering. I don’t know why we think it’s different for everyone else when we ask it, but we do and many of us, though we may state with confidence what we are pursuing can rarely, when the day draws near, state the “next step” with the kind of certainty we’d like.

And I know a lot of Christians, myself included, who don’t like that. The weakness in me wants to call out “Unfair!” The childishness in me insists on seeing what is above me, beyond me, and too much for me to handle. Oh sure, we come up with a lot of “helps” to deal with that problem, too: tests that will pinpoint our star career field or who we’re most compatible with, desperate pursuit of supernaturally-given knowledge and direction, the counsel of every pastor and wise(r) person we can find. We spend so much time trying to figure out the future – even the immediate future, that it’s almost become a characteristic of young evangelicals.

I’m not here to say we need to pay more attention to the present. That’s both another issue in and of itself, as well as yet another weak attempt to clear the mist. The fact is, looking at your feet when you’ve no idea where you’re going isn’t going to cut it. What I am here to say is that God has not given us 20/20 foresight, impeccable discernment or all the resources to make the best decision possible at every possible point in time. And that’s okay. It’s infuriating to our weakness, but it’s okay.

So, what to do? I’m not sure that there is a one-size-all answer to that question. But I know sitting by and waiting for all the ambiguities, shadows, mists, and distant points to clear up is not faithfulness. It’s not what God’s called us to. It’s not pressing on. In his letter to Jewish exiles, James the brother of Jesus wrote the following exhortation:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:13-17 ESV)

Again, I have no 12-step process. I don’t think God’s given us that sort of outline. But James has given us the boundaries of faithfulness: be humble, be submissive to the Lord’s providential will, and do it. And if you don’t, you will know the guilt of your sin in failing to act on the time – this life that quickly vanishes – that God has given you to glorify Him.

If you think that this puts all the burden on you, we have something more for us: the promise that God has guaranteed His glory, guaranteed the harvest, and guaranteed the redemption of all that He bought with His blood:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:26-32)

I’d be willing to walk a far distance for A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life. In a stroke of writing genius, Donald Miller has given people a challenge far more imperative than The Purpose Driven Life and other similar books. While reflecting on the process of adapting one of his previously published books for the silver screen, Don discovered something about life: it’s really a story and it really needs to be a good one, and if we don’t have a good story in our lives, we’re profoundly (and rightly) dissatisfied. So, Don wants his readers to get a better story.

I enjoyed A Million Miles from the first page until the last page of the acknowledgments. The challenge is provocative and vital. The approach is transparent and humorous. The satisfaction from reading is high. A prayerful reader will benefit greatly from pondering and reflecting about the story that they are telling with their lives. Are you living a good story? Are you the character that God has called you to be? Don won’t answer those questions for you, but he does give you the chance to find out for yourself.

Fear defines much about us as human beings. We’re afraid of so many things: the consequences of sin; of ourselves; of what errors we might make; of finances, of catastrophe. It is a part of the human condition. It’s part of what Jesus came to defeat. That is precisely what Max Lucado sets out to confront in Fearless. Working through the nature of fear, and the different kinds of situations that we face fear as sinners, parents, people who aren’t in control, and victims of circumstance, Lucado points the reader again and again to Jesus and the power of this great Savior Who dealt with our sin – the very source of fear.

I very much admire the approach that Lucado takes in this book. This book is seasoned with grace, appropriate levels of humor and the ever-present reality of what our fallenness has done to us. He does well to tell the reader, certainly with a communicative charm, that if they are fearing, they are not giving Jesus His due and the attention and trust that He has shown conclusively and decisively that He deserves. This is a helpful resource for meditating on Jesus’ defeat of our fear.

Perry Noble, pastor of NewSpring Church in South Carolina, has posted a list of “what ifs” about the early church. Answering these questions and realizing the importance of how we invest ourselves in these days is important for every disciple of Jesus to consider. If we are doing what Jesus said, there will be good fruit from it. My challenge would be for you to read this and pray that God would show you where you can better redeem the time and invest in the Kingdom of God.

Note: this was originally written for Teens Set Apart. The views of TSA do not represent the views of David or [Re]Connected.

Whatever! Whatever you say
Whatever! I will obey.
Whatever! Lord, have your way.
Cause you are my God. Whatever!

Before Rush of Fools, Reilly, and a number of other great artists were out there singing the Gospel, Steven Curtis Chapman was already on it (and still is!), singing about life as a Christian. Ten years ago, he released his album Speechless. One of the (classic) songs on this collection is “Whatever” – all about Steven’s plans vs. God’s plans. It’s about the need to submit to what God has and give up your own desires to answer His call. When I look around in the Church today, I find a lot of teens who are all about plans – plans with friends, with family, with church, with school, with life. And I have to wonder…how about their plans with God?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that Christian young people don’t care about God. Many of them do. They go to church a little, they pray a little, they read their Bibles a little. Where’s the plans, though? In Ephesians, the apostle Paul was writing to a church who really didn’t understand much about God’s plans. They were saved. They loved Jesus. They even loved and shared with other Christians. But they didn’t understand that they were not just God’s people. They were a called people. They were marked by the plans of God and it was not their own work, their own idea, but it was in the heart of God from the beginning. That’s why Paul was writing to them. He tells them in Ephesians 1:18-19 that he prays “that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe…”

Later on he would go on to tell us what this looks like. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8-10). God had a plan from the beginning to save us when we didn’t deserve it. He had a plan to give us faith in the work of Jesus on the cross and by the power of His resurrection to raise us to a life that never ends. He planned this without getting our take on it. He planned this without seeing how well we would perform. He planned it and He made us to carry out His plans – and those are plans for good works – Gospel-driven things done for His glory and the good of other people.

We don’t always know what those good works are going to be. So, this is where I really appreciate Steven’s song because it’s a continual reminder to me that I need to go to God and submit to Him and say, “God, whatever it is You want me to do is what I want to do. Please help me to do it well so that people will praise You.” The best part is that this isn’t something we can do with our own strength. God has to do it. Those of us who are believers of Christ have received the Holy Spirit and have Him dwelling in our hearts. The Holy Spirit gives us all the power and guidance we need to live and to do the things God has for us. So, we have one charge: lovingly submit to the God who called you, planned you, and has made you to do all the good things He has planned for you and for others.

These last few days have been interesting at the least…utterly captivating at the most. Sunday was incredibly restful – two fantastic worship services serving as bookends to a shopping trip in Kitwe and the provocation to a soul-sifting discussion that night, both with the team and my roommate.

Monday brought us the challenge of our goal: ten courses of cement block or each of the four classrooms. This was followed by another fine dinner (and a lot of head calculations for bill-paying) at Michaelangelo’s and yet another soul-sifter of a conversation.

Today, we met out goal – mostly. Due to an apparent shortness of mortar availability and a delay in sand for cement arriving on Monday morning, we were unable to get all ten courses for the storage rooms and offices by the classrooms…but the classroom walls are finished! God was so faithful in that building process.

That is the “okay” stuff. Us site works had an opportunity yesterday and today to meet and be blessed by the kids at Lighthouse Christian School. Phenomenal, energetic, needy children who sing praises to Jesus (Yesu Krist) with joy. Not only that, but God has answered our prayers and each of the men from the site heard and indicated a desire to respond to the Gospel!!!! I pray God will bear glorious fruit in their lives!

Now for the title…Sunday and Tuesday evenings, I went to the hotel bar with three other guys from the team. Sebastian, a wonderful Christian man, was bartending Sunday evening and prevailed upon me to try a Mosi, which is a lager produced right here in Ndola. The Mosi was not the point, but the conversations and fellowship with my teammate and our bartenders – Sebastian and Chris – that came because of sitting there having a Mosi were beneficial to my soul.

It reminded me of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus Jesus taught them so much as they conversed, but it was in the table fellowship that they saw their Master. Jesus is certainly in these kinds of situations…