Not Knowing

Three years ago during this time I wrote my very fist blog and every year since I have written one on New Years, so breaking the trend wasn’t an option. I re read those blogs today and it was so cool to reflect on those years and how I sat at the forefront of a new beginning when I typed out those words. I was then able to see how they played out over the course of that year. This time last year I was still a senior in high school fully convinced that there was no way I would ever make it to college. Soon I graduated from high school, spent my summer working at Camp Victory, and then moved into a dorm room and walked into my very first college class. Actually, walking into my first college class wasn’t that calm. I walked into the correct building, climbed three flights of stairs and then realized my class was on the first floor. I walked back down the stairs to a lobby type area and a set of doors that I had no clue what sat behind them.I just knew if I opened them I would be walking into a classroom full of people and I replayed every movie memory of how humiliating that might be. So instead I waited for some one more experienced to open the doors and then followed behind. Spoiler alert- it just led to a hall way which led to the actual classroom doors. Eventually I got the hang of things. My first semester of college came and went and now I sit just days away from the last semester of my freshman year of college. I didn’t believe them at first, but it sure does fly by so quickly.

Today I sat on my back porch listening to the rain pouring down and reflecting on the past year and reading some in Hebrews 11, the book of faith that I have read and have had read to me many times before. These verses however spoke such a truth to me that I had skimmed before, a truth so sweet to see right here at the dawn of a brand new year.

Hebrews 11:8-10

By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

I re read these words several times. Here are the parts that stuck out to me:

By faith Abraham obeyed

he went out, not knowing where he was going

in the land of promise, as in a foreign land

he was looking forward

whose designer and builder is God

Abraham was called to go to a foreign land and because He knew who his God was he obeyed and he went. He had no idea what his paths might bring him, he didn’t know exactly what each day would look like- except the last day. He knew that the Lord had promised Him this land and that it had foundations and that His God had designed and built it. That was all Abraham needed. He didn’t know where He was going, but just that His God had called Him there. At the start of this new year I have no idea what is to come. In a way I’m fearful of what bad things and bumps in the road might come with 2017. Im walking into what seems like a foreign land. I’ll end my freshman year, start a new job, travel to Nicaragua on a missions trip, watch my sister get married, move back to college to start my sophomore year, and who knows what else. Much like Abraham, I don’t know where Im all of where I’m going and whats to come but I know I have a promised inheritance. That’s not to say this time next year Ill be celebrating with a life that looks perfect and all is well- but it does mean that ultimately at the end of my journey stands a promised land that has been designed and built by God Himself. By faith, I can look froward at my God and at my promised land and step into this new year without a worry of what I will face because I know who my God is. By faith I can obey, I can go where I am sent, and do what I am supposed to do because my God has paved the way before me and is calling me every day closer to Himself.

May God bless you in the New Year. I pray whether it be valleys or mountains that you face that you come out on the other knowing and loving and glorifying Him all the more. He is good, don’t walk through this year without Him.

Dear Jesus,

Thank you for the start of the new year. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your promised land.

Love, Em