New Roads on the Old Path

     I graduated this year. I now have a bachelor's degree, and I'm looking for work. My whole life has been spent pursuing academics, and I have been blessed with the aptitude for that pursuit, but now I'm on a new road, and academics are not as important for now. At Patrick Henry, I learned the word "vocation" from a Lutheran scholar named Gene Edward Veith, whose vocation was to study the role of vocation in literature and in the Christian life. At College of the Ozarks, one of the main goals of the school was to develop people who are vocationally minded. (What they meant was hard workers, but I tend to look at it along the lines of the way that Dr. Veith and several of the CofO professors think of the concept.) I know that vocation refers to the calling that each man and woman has wherever he or she finds him or herself. The scope of my vocation right now has been limited to my hometown and what friends I am able to keep in contact with. The main goal right now is to broaden and narrow that scope by adding a particular place in my hometown where I'll meet more people to my daily schedule. (By that I mean, I need a job.)
     The old cliche verse I've been hearing a lot recently, and many grads hear is Jeremiah 29:11. This verse is (almost) ALWAYS out of context. However, God does know His plans for us. "The steps of a [righteous] man are established by the Lord, And He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand." Psalm 37:23-24 NASB (I added righteous based on the inclusion in several other translations, which see.) God does know his plan for me, and He is watching and directing my every step.
     One way I know He is doing this is through His answer to a prayer that I have had for a long time, and His wisdom in the timing and manner in which He answered it. Last fall, I started dating. This beautiful woman who God brought into my life has more that once spoken truth that I've needed to hear which I would have ignored from others. She has made me more gentle, wiser, more considerate, more patient, and taught me that I have a lot to learn.
     So far, I have had a couple of weeks of rest, and I've had ill luck finding a job, but God continues to bless me every day with opportunities and good circumstances, so I praise Him for all that He has done. I hope that I will continue to praise Him if my circumstances change, but I know that I am fickle so I can't assure myself of that. Either way, He is worthy of the praise. And I look down the path ahead of me expecting His glory.

In love, from my dining room,
Justus

A Frustrating God

     Our God is frustrating. I don't mean that in a disrespectful way, but I mean to catch your attention. God is sovereign and all knowing, and He orchestrates all things according to His own plan. We make plans every day, even if they are spontaneous, they're still our plans. We decide that we are going to have a burger for lunch, we decide today is the day to propose, we plan to get a paper done today, and we decide that in two weeks we are going to go on vacation. None of these things are bad, though many people plan to do wrong according to Proverbs 15:26. But our God is a God of frustration. Proverbs 16:9 says "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Not all of our plans pan out.
     I have been learning that this year. I had plans to come to Patrick Henry College and graduate here, then to find a job I love and to get married. These plans are all pretty vague, except that I planned a specific place I wanted to be when I graduated. Now it looks like God has other plans. It seems I ignored James' advice. "Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away." I had counted on my own plans, and now, due to circumstances out of my control (God's hand, as far as I can tell) my plans have been frustrated. I was upset, in more than one sense of the term. Like many saints before me I was displaced from where I thought God wanted me. My own plans were not His. God makes this clear in Jeremiah 55:8-9. What makes my situation worse is my original reaction. I was angry. Why would God bring me here just long enough that I should get comfortable, then force me to leave? Why would He let me come at all? These questions put me in an analogous position to Jonah. Not the sitting in the belly of a big fish, where Jonah learned to repent and obey God, but sitting under a withered weed where Jonah questioned God's mercy and justice. I was sitting under the withered weed of my self-centered hopes and blaming God for killing a plant I didn't even raise. I didn't do anything extraordinary to get to Patrick Henry, I was trusting God for every cent to pay for the education. I had even made this clear to myself beforehand. So when I found out I wouldn't be able to come back next semester, I should have accepted the change as God's new plan for my life, but instead, I questioned His wisdom.
      Recently I have been getting over my resentment. Almost every conversation I have had in the last week has centered around the goodness of God and His plans for my future. Romans 8:28 has been coming to mind frequently. Though out of context, I have been connecting the idea of God's good plans for me from here and Jeremiah 29:11 with a passage in James 1, where James tells us that all good things come from God. God's plans for me are good. In this I have faith. He is good, sovereign and will not fail to reward those who love Him, be it on earth or in the Kingdom.
     George Müller is one of my heroes. His faith that God would provide everything he needed and that God's will for him was where he needed to be was seemingly unwavering. (Though as a man, I suspect he had many doubts.) I came to Patrick Henry wanting to be like George Müller, never wanting for anything because of God's provision, but I didn't have the faith to let God choose my path. I tried to direct my own way and then let God provide what I needed to follow it. Who is to say God won't still do this, but I suspect God wants me to follow a different path now, and that He will provide, but in a much different way than I had planned. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

-From my desk at Patrick Henry College
In faith, Justus

Proverbs 15:26, Proverbs 16:9, James 4:13-14, Jeremiah 55:8-9, Jonah 4, Romans 8:28, Jeremiah 29:11, James 1:17, Proverbs 3:5-6