YOU DON’T HAVE TO KNOW THE DESTINATION TO FOLLOW GOD’S PLAN

In a world where everything is fast-paced, critical, controlling, precise and stringent, few these days know the true meaning of rest, even for two minutes. Prior to 2011, my life had been one of a type A person, needing to constantly be scheduled so that, God forbid, boredom would arise. Boredom, in my family, was heavily criticized – only stupid people get bored, my dad used to say.

I first learned what burnout was in high school, though I did not yet know the official term. At one point in time, I was involved in school, after-school clubs, the track team, community theater and, my senior year, taking college courses. When I got home from school, I would crash, sleep until dinner time and then do my homework before bed.

College is supposed to make people smarter but they didn’t have any classes on how to avoid burnout. I again scheduled just as much into my social life as I had in my curricula and overloaded myself so badly senior year that I didn’t write my 15-page capstone project (which I had known about for 2.5 years) until the night before my presentation. I did not get an A; I did not deserve an A. I missed appointments and let down my sorority sisters when I accidentally double and sometimes triple booked myself. This happened on more than a couple occasions. Time management was not my strong point until later in my career.

Working in an environment where assignments were to be completed right now and perfection was always assumed, I, again, overloaded myself in two of my three career choices. In every instance, I would choose overworking myself over seeming like a failure and not being able to complete an assignment. Every time.

Living in Singapore in a time when having a paying job wasn’t always an option gave me an opportunity to rest, whether I wanted to or not. I had time to think about where I was in life and where I thought I should be. I had time to make friends, enjoy coffee, read books, watch endless episodes of Castle and explore a part of the world I never thought I would see.

In addition to my physical rest, through my time in the amazing New Creation Church, I learned about the importance of resting beyond the physical, resting one’s mind and spirit, and trusting that – no matter what the situation – God has it all figured out.

When Jesus died on the cross, He uttered the words, “It is finished.” Now, I have learned that those words mean that God poured out all of his anger toward mankind, sin and everything negative in the world upon Jesus. The wrath of God fell upon His Son, who was also at the time bearing every sickness, every pain, every disease and every infliction that has ever and will ever harm any human being. Because of that, none of us has to go through what He already went through, praise Jesus. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” he was saying that he, in that moment, paid the price for all of our sins, granting us a great life of wonder in heaven. The heaven part and dying for our sins I knew growing up, but I never understood that act in the depth in which I do today.

What I have also learned about that declaration is that that moment is also a reminder that God’s work is finished – His plan for our life is finished and we are just along for the ride, trying to figure out his plan day by day. One of the hardest things I have learned in the last two years is the true meaning of doing nothing – resting in God’s finished work. On my way home from work last week, I heard a radio clip of a man saying, “You don’t have to know the destination in order to follow God’s plan,” and I thought, “Yeah, that sounds like my life this year.”

In late January, my husband turned down an offer to renew his two-year contract flying a jet for one of Singapore’s many millionaires. He had his reasons for declining, even after a decent counter offer, and part of that decision was knowing that this path was not Paul’s destination. He turned down a job offer without having another job lined up, knowing that we would be forced to leave Singapore in early April after the contract concluded and likely move in with his parents until we were presented another opportunity.

Fortunately, we know we are blessed and we knew there was a plan in place – we just had to wait for directions. In late March, Paul was presented with an opportunity to fly a government leader in another far away land. Since his contract signing, we have been told we could live in Singapore, Australia or Papua New Guinea and that one day someone would tell us. We went more than three months to hear where and when we would be moving.

In that time, Paul went to training and began work. I helped family and managed to have a little fun in the process, working very hard for my food at the family restaurant.

We do not yet know our final destination but I anticipate many more moves in our future. Follow along as we spend the next three years finding a new home or three.