Is your life unfolding the way you thought it would? I was paging through my high school Yearbook recently. There were one-hundred and sixty-one young men in my graduating class, and less than a handful are doing what they thought, hoped, or dreamed they would be doing. Most of them are glad. They didn’t know themselves well enough to decide what they were going to do for the rest of their lives when they were seventeen or eighteen. And that’s just work and career.
Life doesn’t turn out the way we expect. It some ways it exceeds our expectations, and in other ways it disappoints them.
There may be hopes and dreams that were part of the life we expected that we need to grieve because they didn’t materialize. But there are also hopes and dreams we had when we were younger that we are glad did not come to be. We see now that we were ill-suited for them, and they were ill-suited for us. At the same time, there are things about the unexpected life that are wonderful and amazing in unexpected ways.
Life doesn’t unfold as we plan. We all live unexpected lives, in one way or another. But sooner or later, we have to decide how we are going to make the most of the unexpected life.
It is then that we come face to face with two enduring truths: We cannot live without the hope that things will change for the better, and we are not victims of our circumstances.
You are not what has happened to you. You are not what you have accomplished. You are not even who you are today or who you have become so far. You are also who and what you are still capable of becoming. You are your realized and unrealized potential.
God sees you and all your potential, and he aches to see you embrace your best, truest, highest self. God yearns to help you and accompany you in that quest.
Wherever you are… whatever you’re feeling… however life has surprised you and disappointed you… I want to remind you of one thing: the best is yet to come! There are times in life when this is easier or harder to believe, but the best is yet to come. So, open yourself up to it, so you can see it and embrace it when it emerges!
From I Heard God Laugh
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