Desiring a Blueprint

             I’m finally a senior in college, but I’ve found myself more scared than excited, and more worried than peaceful, basically, the opposite of relying on Christ. But, I’ve been trying so hard. Questions kept pounding my thoughts one day last semester, such as “What am I going to do after college?” “If I do grad school, how am I going to pay for it?” Should I write, teach, event plan, what?”

Suddenly, I found myself begging God for the same thing He told me I didn’t need a long time ago—a blueprint.  Then, He whispered to my heart a truth that I never realized before: only a professional knows how to read a blueprint.  

When I was a little, I found the blueprints to my home. My small hands unraveled the code and I stared in wonder. Being an inquisitive child, I had to know what the blueprint meant. Blue ink covered the pages, and I had no idea what to make of any of it; so, I called in an expert—my dad.

My dad has to interpret blueprints often. So, we sat down with the instructions stretched out to size. He pointed out every detail he thought would interest me. I showed him, in pride, \ the walls, but those lines actually illustrated the perimeter of the foundation. The one part I thought I could pinpoint by myself ended up being something completely different.Through my eyes, I saw blue ink on a page, but through my dad’s trained eyes that ink wasn’t a big mess; it was a house.

Just as I couldn’t read the blueprints to my house, I also can’t interpret God’s plan for my life. I need Him to sit with me every day and tell me the next step. Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (NIV).  This verse reminds me that I’m not the expert when it comes to the big picture of my life and my understanding fails me every time.

Jeremiah 29:11, states, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future’” (NIV). God has a plan for us and doesn’t hand us the blueprint because it’s a God plan. Even if He hand it to us, we would never understand it without Him, and it’d probably overwhelm us. God’s ways are not our ways, and instead of seeing a beautiful future, we’d probably just see a big blue inkblot.  

Living Life Together,

Rebecca Thomas