As life progresses, there's one point that's driven itself home, time and time again: there is nothing that is predictable. Truly, every time I've thought I had the vaguest idea of what was going on in my life, something (or nothing at all) occurs to turn all my plans and ideas upon themselves. What usually follows is a sort of personal crisis, in which I question God's plan for my life, how my redundant suffering could possibly glorify Him, how much say I even have in my own life, and the purpose of my proactivity at all.
Amidst each run of doubt, what I feel about God's plan wrestles with what I know to be true of God's character. And over weeks, months, and sometimes years of agonizing, my faith is tested and purified, and ultimately I have always lived to see beauty again. Yet, while I am able to look back, see the purpose, and recognize my survival, I also have to admit that survival simply isn't enough. I believe it's God's will to teach me to thrive through adversity; a thing easily said, but much more evasive in practice.
Lately I've been told by individuals wiser and more knowledgeable than myself to press into the Lord. But that seems like such a Christianese term, and such things have always come off as platitudes to me; banal and meaningless; almost like a polite way for Christians to tell one another to go pound sand, when they can't spare one another the time of day. I admit, that's a grievance I've always had; the language we use that seems to estrange the unchurched world. But now I think the meaning behind what otherwise seems cliché simply requires a bit of meditation and a lot of prayer to be able to adequately process.
Within the past day or so, I've been forced to look beneath the platitude and try to understand what it means to lean into the Lord. It seems like this is a thing that can only be tempered in the dark void of the unknown, or what seems like an inverted, chaotic hellscape of a sensible world. If all sense is removed and all mortal plans shattered, we're left in a crucible with a fate-altering dilemma: to give in to the comfort of human impulse, or to trust that our good, loving, holy Lord has a handle on the entirety of creation.
When it's phrased that way, the answer is simple. But in the midst of the forest, how hard it is to see it through the trees.
This is an active battle. For myself, as I'm certain it is for everyone aware of it in their own lives. To trust the Lord. To lean into Him. To cast our concerns upon Him. To truly let go, not only of what we think we want, but even of the whims of our hearts in general. What is God's plan for this circumstance? In what way should I interact with it? Shall I endure and hope for a thing which I believe I shouldn't give up on, or shall I pick up the pieces of my heart and move on, with a hope of something better beyond what I can see?
What I submit is neither. Instead, give the whole situation over to the Lord, focus fully on Him, and on doing in our own lives what best represents His character. Trust that, in circumstances beyond our discernment, He will do what is ultimately best, and we need only wait patiently, clinging to His hand like a child in the dark.
