Needless to say, I have a lot of things swirling around in my head that I feel the need to put in writing, and it’s all been bottled up for a while now. I made a resolution to myself that I will keep this blog current once again, it will be good for my sanity. So prepare for posts ranging from politics and theology, to facebook and social media.

I’m back.

Even more recently, I turned 25. Yes, 25. That probably sounds pretty young to most of you, but this is the oldest I have ever been and I have been facing some sort of silly quarter -life-crisis. I think part of that was promising to take my cousin to the skatepark. You see, when I was his age rollerblades were THE thing, and I had some nice ones! I would go down any hill (even when faced with oncoming traffic), jump over any object (even my little brother), and try to grind any bench or pole in sight. But the last time I did any of that was when I was 16…almost ten years ago. So in promising to take him, I was also trying to prove that I still had it. I wanted to believe that I could still be edgy, risky, and dumb.

Only a few short weeks passed before he reminded me of my promise, and on a Saturday afternoon we hit up the park. He was having a blast, seeing just how high he could jump and how fast he could go up and down all the ramps. I on the other hand was just trying not to kill myself. Remember, almost ten years and I couldn’t find any of my knee pads, just my skates. As much as I wanted to go flying through the air, I spent most of the day trying to get my balance back. Small ramps and tiny jumps were enough.

In a way, the whole situation made me feel old. But at the same time I realised that maybe I had gained a little bit of wisdom…at least enough to keep me from getting hurt, and the older I get, the more important that becomes.

Write your plans in pencil and give God the eraser.

As cliché as that may sound,it is a guiding principal that has greatly impacted my life and helped me to understand and deal with things when they don’t go according to my own plans.

Having the personality that I do, I have a great need to write down goals and plans so that I have a target to aim towards. I can’t stand the feeling of aimlessly wondering around without a purpose. Since I was a teenager at the beginning of the year I sit down and write out goals and plans for the next year, three years, and five years. I keep a detailed record of progress toward those goals, and make changes and adaptations as needed. When I started college I had very specific plans for what I would do upon graduation, and as graduation came closer and closer, my plans became clearer and more detailed, even though it wasn’t the plans I had originally written out. I especially had my summer mapped out to perfection.

Here it is August already and none of those plans have come to pass. Why? I didn’t change my mind, everything I had planned are still things I would like to do. It’s not that I didn’t have the time or money, things just didn’t work out like I wanted them to. This is a familiar pattern in my life. From my childhood I knew the I was going to go to college, play basketball, and become rich and famous. When I was 17 my whole world got turned upside down and the doors of opportunity slammed shut in my face. It took me a while to figure things out and to get a new direction for my life, but in the end I realised what a huge blessing it had been and that I had spent so much of my life distracted by one thing that I had failed to give attention to some of my greatest abilities. As I got back on track and refocused, I discovered a whole new world of possibilities.

When it came time for me to move away and go to college I had a lot of expectations and ideas of the clubs and events I would be involved in. Once again, not everything went as I had planned. As I continued to grow and change as a person and allowed my mind to be opened, I realised that a lot of my desires were based on a very limited understanding.

At first, it was very hard for me to accept changes to my plans, after all, I had plans! When I was younger I would get upset, even angry, and cry out to God saying things like, “why, I just don’t understand!” And, “God, just make your will plain to me.” All the while not realising that He was indeed making His will plain to me by shutting certain doors and being so upset that I couldn’t see the ones He was opening. I was so set on MY plans that I was missing His plans. God never once forced me to follow His plans, He was simply answering the prayers that I had so desperately offered up.

Once I began to see what was happening it became much easier to let go of MY plans and to embrace His. It’s not that my plans were bad, on the contrary, they were very good and ambitious. But His plans were better. And when I started following His plans my life started to become more and more enriched.

So here I am, sitting in the town I grew up in, living (temporarily) in my parents house, and being the youth pastor at my home church. Far far away from the globetrotting plans and exotic experiences I had planned for my summer. I couldn’t be happier.