Slowing to Be With God Amidst an Anxious, Fast-Paced LifeSample

What is more childlike than repetitively asking your father the same question? Even the apostles were anxious about the specifics of the Father's plan: when will Jesus return, and when will the kingdom of Israel be restored?

I have spent my life obsessing over future and goals. With life barreling towards me at high speed, I didn’t want to get left behind. In my ego, I set out to know everything to maintain control.

I became a big ball of anxiety. Even exciting things like going to college prompted my intense urge to shut down. Each plan I made and stressed over sprouted a handful of worries and questions on its own!

If the apostles weren't meant to know the timing of something as important as the redemption of the world, what makes us so entitled to think we need to know our whole future? I was so impatient for the Lord’s plan to start that I made up my own in the meantime. It feels like there is so much to do and so much being asked of us with so little time. I did not realize the beauty of not knowing until we explored anxieties around timing in a college class of mine.

In reality, all God asks of us is to love Him, be a witness in our waiting, and trust Him with what he does tell us about what is next.

Do we think that the God of all cannot carry out His plan without our input? His plan for you and all the world will prevail, not because of what we do but regardless of what we do. Thank God for that!

We can start giving up that control by admitting, “I don’t know, but I'll listen to what Jesus says.” Like the angels reminding the apostles to trust God, it is an opportunity to loosen our desire for control and be ready for the Holy Spirit to overflow in our life, guiding us to what is next.

What a blessing to not know everything! He lifts a weight off of us that was never ours to begin with.

Everlasting God, help us loosen our control, help us to trust your timing, help us to rely on the outpouring of the powerful Holy Spirit, that we may give witness to your overflowing glory as you work out your plans through Jesus Christ our Lord.