Living in the Unknown

These past few months I have been living in such a way that I have no idea what’s going to happen next. I don’t mean that I don’t know what I’m making for dinner, or I don’t know what I want to do next week. I literally mean that I have no idea what is coming our way.

There is a scariness in not knowing what the future holds. I know that none of us really know what the future holds. This is true. We have no idea what tomorrow will actually bring. But we have a general idea. We have plans for tomorrow and next week and next month and even next year.

But this week…I have no clue what our lives will look like next week. We are in the middle of one of those crazy God moments. When everything is completely out of our control and we have to trust the Lord to lead us down one path or another. We know what we want to do. We’ve planned for what we want to do. And then when something big happens in life and you can no longer count on your plans, it gets a little scary.

We are in France right now, studying French for when we move to West Africa. It’s all been planned out. We will stay here for a year, then move to West Africa and begin our ministry there. We planned what we would bring here to France; things we would need immediately and things we would eventually need for Africa. We’ve planned for having a baby here in France, planned for what our lives will look like once the baby is born. We have plans for our toddlers, on teaching them French and living in various countries and cultures. We have plans for how we will communicate with our families and friends and supporters while we are so very far away. We have plans for how we will deal with homesickness and culture shock and loneliness while we are away. We have all of these plans that we have put in place for where we are at in life right now.

And suddenly we found ourselves uncertain of all of these plans we so carefully orchestrated. Suddenly we are at a cross roads of staying here or returning home. After nearly 4 months in France we now face the possibility that all of these plans we have made for our lives, for our kids’ lives, will suddenly be all for nothing.

Okay, it’s not all for nothing. Just because we don’t know what the future actually holds, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plan for things. We should make plans. Sometimes our plans are God-ordained. He is behind them, guiding them, working them out. Sometimes they are just our own plans- things that we want to do. Nothing is wrong with that. And sometimes, the plans we make are God’s plans but then for reasons that we just don’t know, He changes things. Or redirects us for a time being.

One of the things I love about being in situations like this is that it’s all about God. We may have our wants and our desires, but ultimately what happens depends solely on God. It’s terribly scary, but there is also some peace in it. When everything is completely out of your control and you are trusting God to lead your very next step, the next step that will determine your very life direction, there is something so reassuring about that. If God is the one leading, you can’t mess it up. If it’s all in His hands and you are simply following His direction, there is something so peaceful and calming in that.

I hate these situations, but I also love them. We have found ourselves in these type of situations only a handful of times. It’s stressful just waiting and being uncertain of what next week will hold. But it’s also such a relief knowing that God is the one in control and you will clearly see Him moving and working and leading you. You will know for certain that this is what God wants you to do because it is all completely out of your control and manipulation.

Right now, we find ourselves living in this unknown. Uncertain if we will continue living in France for the next 8 months, or moving back home for a period of time. It’s so scary not knowing if we need to make plans for going home (finding a place to live, figuring out what we will do when we get there, getting all of our furniture and things from storage, etc etc) and starting to pack all of our suitcases here, or if we will continue on in France like we had originally planned. Scary, yet a sense of peace. Whatever happens in the next week or so will prove that God is leading us in that specific direction.

If you find yourselves living in the unknown, waiting on God to make the next move, find peace in that. I know that it can be stressful and overwhelming, and if you’re anything like me and need to make plans for the future it can be quite scary. But rest in the knowledge that it is the Lord leading you and trust that He has your best interest at heart- even if it doesn’t make sense to you at the time.