I Don’t Know and It’s Okay

“When did you get back?” is always the first question people ask, and I’m okay with that because I know the answer. It’s the second question that gets me. 

“And when are you going back?” 

This shouldn’t be a difficult question, but this year I feel like the college senior in May who still doesn’t know what she’s doing after graduation and is tired of everyone asking. 

But actually, it’s a great opportunity to say, “I don’t know and it’s okay.” And then I explain why. 

We live in a society that emphasizes planning. Even from a young age, kids are taught how to plan and organize - from color-coded binders to chores to-do lists and rewards charts with gold stars. At the university level, we are trained to set short term and long term goals with a pathway of how to accomplish our ten year plan. These are high cultural values: setting goals, making plans, and being organized because that leads to success and wealth and long happy lives, right?

I’m starting to challenge all that. Not that those things aren’t important, just that they might not be as important as we make them out to be. It’s a balance, I think; we need to plan a little, be a little spontaneous, and trust Jesus in both. I’m beginning to believe that trust and adventure and crazy faith and spontaneity actually bring a fullness of life that you can’t know if you’re always planning things and sticking to the plan. Jesus said life to the full is found in knowing him, and following him is definitely not a schedule-based, highly organized, type-A routine. It’s a wild ride, an adventure that requires daily trust and daily sensitivity to the Spirit’s leading. You see, he gets to make the plan (not us), and we get to see that plan unfold as we walk humbly with him. 

Maybe I’m contemplating all these things since I’m staring at change and uncertainty in the near future. Maybe it’s because I have a few open doors in front of me and I don’t know which one to walk through. I’m learning that sometimes it’s not really about which door you walk through (assuming that all the open doors in front of you are not obviously or directly in contrast to God’s Word and will). There is only one door that matters. Jesus says he is the door (John 10) and that the sheep who know him “go in and out and find safe pasture.” (v.9) 

So as long as we are walking to him - with him - that’s what matters. So instead of obsessing about which choice to make, which door to walk through, maybe we have the freedom to “go in and out” within the will of God, meaning the ability to make choices in where we go and what we do as we seek to obey him and work with him to  bring his kingdom to earth. Perhaps God’s will is less like a restricted fenced-in area and more like a wide open pasture where we can delight in green pastures, walk beside still waters, and dance upon heights with the feet of a dear. As we go in and out, we find safe pasture because we are in him; he is our pasture. Pasture may not be in a certain location, such as walking through a certain door. Rather, pasture is where He is. And as long as we are walking with our Shepherd and staying near to him, we have all the pasture we need, no matter if we walk through the Africa door or the Atlanta door, whether we choose the engineering door or the waitressing door, whether we enter the marriage season or the singleness season. 

Instead of darting our eyes between all the different doors, we fix our eyes on The Door. Instead of worrying about staying within the fence we have created, we have the freedom to roam in and out and find safe pasture because we love the Shepherd and will never leave his sight. 

That’s why I can say, “I don’t know and it’s okay.” It’s more than okay; it’s good. It’s good to be in a place where God knows the plan and you don’t. It makes the sheep stay really close on the heels of the Shepherd.