Embracing This Present Season of Life

I have this habit of looking forward toward the future, and keeping the past firmly in my sights as well.  This leaves too little time for focusing on the present.

Image credit: Stock photo via Stuart Miles at freedigitalphotos.net

In keeping with my theme of {FOCUS} for this year, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to really embrace the present--the present day, and the present time in life.  Right now my season of life includes the vocations of wife, homemaker, and college student, among others.  One vocation I do not have right now is motherhood.

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to being a mama.  The excitement of preparing for the birth of a child, wondering if it will be a boy or girl, whose features our child will have, what their personality will be like.  The changes in our life that a child will bring--new jobs and responsibilities, a new person to love and care for.  Seeing this living miracle that God made, in my body, a personification of his love for us in a tiny baby.  Sure, there are things to be less excited about... the discomfort and pain of pregnancy and childbirth, learning how to nurture our marriage with the added challenge of having a baby.

But right now, none of these things is in our near future.  We still have a couple years left before we're both done with school, and therefore, we'll need to wait to become parents.

As much as I'm looking forward to the future, it won't do to focus only on that right now.  God has me in this place, in this season of life, for very good reason.  He has a purpose for my life right now.  He has work for me to do right where I am.  Therefore, instead of spending all my time planning for and thinking about having a baby sometime in the future, I'm going to look for ways to serve God right here, right now.

Practically speaking, what does it mean to embrace each season of life as it comes?

-I embrace the roles God has given me.  Right now, those are wife, homemaker, and college student.  The roles of wife and homemaker will be mine for the rest of my life.  Now is the time to work on those, gaining wisdom and experience, and nurturing my marriage as much as I can, so that it can stand strong through the changes and challenges that will inevitably come.  After all, even after our future children grow up and leave home, I'll still be a wife--that's my first calling, and the most important.

-I look for ways to serve.  I don't have to wait till my husband is officially a teacher and "in the ministry."  We can start doing ministry right now!  I have hopes and plans that I'm looking to implement this fall...I'll let you know when those plans are more concrete.  At home, I can serve my husband, by taking care of our home and striving to be the best helper to him that I can.  I can open my home to others, and share the love of Jesus by practicing hospitality.  What gifts have I been given?  I can share those and thus serve the Lord.

-I leave the future in God's hands.  It does no good to worry about the future.  I have very little control over the days to come--but God does.  He already knows what will happen in my future, because he is eternal--not bound by time.
God made a promise to his people Israel that applies to his people today, too:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you," declares the Lord... (Jeremiah 29:11-14a)

Jesus taught this to his disciples in Matthew (6:31-34):

"So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."  (Emphasis added)

Finally, we can be certain that nothing in the past, present or future will ever change the way God loves us, and he will let nothing separate us from him.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39, emphasis added)

What does this mean for us?  It means we can embrace our life, wherever we are in it, without fear and with joy, because God has our future in his hands.  He has a plan for us.  And his love for us is unchanging, and will stay the same forever, no matter what the future holds.

Linking with: A Proverbs 31 Wife, What Joy is Mine, The Alabaster Jar, Raising Arrows, The Better Mom, the Modest Mom

Trust in God, not in myself

In one of my theology classes this semester we're working on becoming more familiar with biblical commentaries so we know how to use them for reference and teaching in the future.  I have found some useful resources online.  I'd like to share some of those with you so you can use them for your own study and edification, and also to seek some deeper meaning on one of my favorite passages.

(Note: I can't vouch for the theology of all the sources I'm about to cite.  I don't know the doctrinal beliefs of the writers, but I do agree with their commentary on the particular passage I'm studying today.)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

    and do not lean on your own understanding.

⁶ 

In all your ways acknowledge him,

    and he will make straight your paths.

This is Proverbs 3:5-6 in the English Standard Version.

Just looking at the verses themselves, what do they mean?

-God is fully trustworthy.  I can confidently put my trust in him.

-I am not trustworthy and should not rely on my own wisdom and understanding.

-In everything I do I should look to God.

-When I give my life to him he will show me the right way to go.

The commentary in my NIV Concordia Self-Study Bible reads,

"Commit your way to the Lord, like Israel's forefathers, who trusted in God and were rescued...Be ever mindful of God and serve him with a willing and faithful heart...He will remove the obstacles from your pathway and bring you to your appointed goal." * 

I quite like this expansion on the text from the Matthew Henry Concise Commentary:

"We must trust in the Lord with all our hearts, believing he is able and wise to do what is best. Those who know themselves, find their own understandings a broken reed, which, if they lean upon, will fail. Do not design any thing but what is lawful, and beg God to direct thee in every case, though it may seem quite plain. In all our ways that prove pleasant, in which we gain our point, we must acknowledge God with thankfulness. In all our ways that prove uncomfortable, and that are hedged up with thorns, we must acknowledge him with submission. It is promised, He shall direct thy paths; so that thy way shall be safe and good, and happy at last. " (Source)

I love how this passage makes clear our own weakness and inability to do life well on our own.  From experience I have found that when I rely on my own wisdom for decision-making, things usually don't turn out very well.  It's only when I seek to make God's will for me my will, that life goes smoothly.  We should not attempt to bend His will to ours.  Rather, when our decisions aren't working the way we want them to, it's a sign that we should bend our will to His.

This note from the Reformation Study Bible sums that idea up well:

"The Lord will guide you to the final goal of life. God gives wisdom and with it the task of making wise decisions; these are the two aspects of guidance in wisdom teaching. There is no hint of guidance that bypasses the duty of making decisions. But human decisions do not overrule the protection of God’s providence (Gen. 50:20, 21; Ps. 103:14)." (Source)

God doesn't lay our life out in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step instruction sheet.  We have been blessed with free will, and therefore we have the abilities to make our own decisions, whether for good or ill.  But when we put our trust in God and seekHis will, then we will be able to discern the paths he has laid out for us.

When we are in communion with God by being in prayer and in the Word, he makes his desires known to us.  That doesn't mean we'll find the literal answer to our every question in the Bible.  But the Bible does contain guidelines for our life: Love God, love those around us, obey God, trust Him, have faith in Jesus Christ.  When we are putting those things first, the rest will fall into place.

I think the greatest comfort I take from this passage is knowing that God is active in my life, leading me to live as He wants me to.  Because the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts, we are constantly able to be obedient to God and His will.  He takes interest in our lives because of Jesus--because of what Jesus has done for us, we are children of God, and as a parent cares about every detail of their child's life, so God cares intimately for us.  Therefore, we can trust him, and put our lives securely in his hands.

How has God taught you to trust Him?  What is one way you can give your life over to Him today?  How do you take comfort from this passage, knowing that God loves you and is active in your life?

Linking with: Upward Not Inward, Deep Roots at Home, Raising Homemakers, We are THAT Family

*Concordia Self-Study Bible, NIV, Robert G. Hoerber, ed., emphasis added, p 950