The Halfway Point

If you had to guess what your life would look like 17 years from now, do you think you could do it with any degree of accuracy?

I couldn’t. And that thought is especially on my mind today, because Sunday marks 17 years since I was baptized.

That’s half my life. Half! For every baptism anniversary that comes after this one, I’ll have spent more time as a baptized member of God’s Church than not.

I think about where I was in life 17 years ago—single, still in high school, in another state—still pretty unsure about what the rest of my life was going to look like.

And now, here I am—married with kids, working for the Church, living in a house of my own after moving into and out of two other states—still pretty unsure about what the rest of my life is going to look like.

If you had told me the future back then, I would have been excited to hear that I was going to end up with a family I love and a fulfilling job—but my life is filled with details I could never have guessed. And peering 17 years ahead is about as difficult to do now as it was back then. How many variables exist between then and now? How could I even begin to guess?

One thing I have learned in that time is that God will get me where I need to be.

I don’t have to know all the details (let’s be honest—I’ll never know all the details), because it’s enough knowing that God does. He’s coordinating it all according to His perfect timing and His perfect roadmap. I can plan, I can put in the effort, I can have ideas about where I’d like to end up—but at the end of the day, the whole thing has been an exercise in trusting Him to open the right doors at the right time, then doing my part to walk through them.

That makes me excited about the next 17 years. I don’t know what’s coming, but I do know that I trust Him. He’s led me this far—and wherever the road goes from here, I can be sure that it’s going to take me wherever I need to be.

Even when I must walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff reassure me.

(Psalm 23:4, NET)

Lead on, O LORD!

Until next time,
Jeremy