Wrecked

I got to hang with college students last Thursday night at Austin Stone On Campus. It was pretty amazing to hang and worship with over 1200 students! Jeff Mangum gave an incredible message that pretty much punched me right in the face. I was unprepared...c'mon I was going to a college event....it was going to be mission trips, service opportunities, and getting involved, sing Kumbaya, right?? Wrong.

If you asked me right now what my five year plan looked like, I could spew it at you within 15 seconds:

Plug into Austin and ministry here, have a few kids (I even have my perfect age spacing in mind), Jacob finish school and get a job, get settled somewhere and find a home, pick up some new hobbies, start on my book, learn to sew, grow my silly, short-sided faith..............

At 28 1/2, I thought things would be GREATLY different. I've been so disappointed lately that I am not where I thought I should be by now. I see so many that are where I long to be. I find myself holding onto things that God's been literally pulling each finger off. He's the greatest, I am the least. Get over yourself and your silly man-made plans, Cristina.

Mangum pulled this one out. James 4:13 "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."

Punch. Ouch.

The Matthew Henry's Commentary on this chapter was another face punch:

"How vain it is to look for anything good without God's blessing and guidance. The frailty, shortness, and uncertainty of life ought check the presumptuous confidence of all projects for futurity.....We are always to depend on the will of God. Our times are not in our own hands, but at the disposal of God. Our heads may be filled with cares and contrivances for ourselves, or our families, or our friends, but Providence often throws our plans into confusion. All we design, and all we do, should be with submissive dependence on God."

I am sore.

Are the plans I dream and conjure and play-out in my mind, laid down at the feet of my Lord with submissive dependence?? Always, all the time, with everything? Do I offer each decision and dream and care from the noteworthy to the mundane with a pure heart that says, "Lord, all yours......please get me, myself, and I out of the way!" I want to say that everyday I "lay it all down" and trust God for his perfection, his character, his holiness, just himself, but let's be honest. It's easy to make much of what I want and think I need, heck......that's 8 of 10 prayer requests. Hear me, they aren't bad things, those things I desire and most likely neither are yours....but are we wrecked out, sold out for God's plans for us so much so that when things go far from our idea of how we think they should, that we have JOY still?! Disappointment, sure, fine for a bit.....but then a switch to utter joy and a quiet heart because we are "tucked into" the will of God for our life. His best laid plans, not ours.

Definitely given me some good things to chew on. Lord, continue to throw my silly five year plan into confusion.....so that I live for you today, your glory, for eternity.