Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord you God will be with you wherever you go.”
One of my biggest struggles, both past and present, is anxiety of the future. If you know me, you know I’m a planner (a strict one) and if something doesn’t go the way I planned I get very disappointed and irritated. At the beginning of 2016 God gave me a reality check, everything I had planned to be accomplish by mid-year was NOT happening. I knew wholeheartedly that He was asking me to let go and hand things over to Him. I had to fight hard to let go of the way I wanted the timeline of my life to go and hand it over to God without hesitation. Looking back that was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to do aside from being obedient to what He was telling me to do. I had to let go of friendships, come face to face with certain things from my past, keep a job I no longer wanted to be at and step away from my comfort zones. To be honest, I was terrified but not because I thought God was going to mess me up, I knew He had my back (Isaiah 41:13), but because the elimination of these friendships and the trials that were ahead of me meant that I was going to be alone in the midst of the unknown.
I spent months doubting God. I thought I had made a mistake leaving behind the people He commanded me to because maybe He wouldn’t come through after all. Or maybe He would notice the pieces of my life were just too messy to clean up and move on. I seriously had nights where I would lie awake and ask myself what I had done or if I had heard God correctly. Deep down God knew as well as I did that I was asking myself these questions in order to fool myself into having a reason to say “this isn’t working, better luck next time” and just picking up where I had left off. Have you ever done a group project and just ended up doing all the work yourself because you didn’t want to relay on people and were scared of them messing up your grade? That is me. I am that girl. I actually did that this morning during my BIO 109 lab class. I let my partners think they have a say in the lab report but as soon as I’m alone with it I edit it to my own liking and that’s exactly what I was trying to pull on God. Of course I can’t pull a fast one on God though and even if I could, why would I want to? His word says that He has plans for us and that they are plans for good and not for disaster to give us a future and hope (Jeremiah 29:11). I was literally setting myself up with those questions of doubt. During this time, I prayed a lot about the things I still wanted to accomplish, about the desires of my heart, my worries and anxieties I still happened to stumble upon after so many years. Matthew 7:7 says “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you”, it’s important to be H.O.T.- Honest, Open, and Transparent- with God during prayer so that He may be able to strengthen you where need be, just as Jesus prayed and was strengthen in in Luke 22:41-44. With these honest prayers came a lot of tears and things I didn’t even know I dealt with but I knew God would come through for me just as He did for Jesus on the Mount of Olives.
Within this time the trials came but loneliness did not accompany them. I was content in the Lord and I felt infinite with Him. I still do. I don’t want to say I have complete freedom of anxiety of the future because I don’t and yes I am still the biggest planner you’ll probably ever meet but I now know that God is in control and that I am not. With that came the understanding that no matter how many itineraries I make or how good I think my planning is, His plans are better and are above mine. You don’t notice too much of what God is doing while you’re in the middle of things but once it starts to settle and you see the beauty of his Hand within your life you’ll be in such awe that you’ll feel it physically and it is always going to be so much better than what you had planned for yourself.
Think about the season you are in right now, is God asking you to allow Him to take control of a situation? Whether it be a dating relationship, a friendship or maybe you’re like me and haven’t given God the space to have an active role in your life. I encourage you ladies to pray honest prayers to the Lord and to allow Him to do great things within you and your lives.
-Juliet Tejada