Last Sunday afternoon, I devoted the day to family time and went canoeing with my parents. It's free, it's fun, and I love the outdoors now so I spend a lot of my free time these days at the park.
We went to a veteran's park called Black Shoals Park near our home for the first time and spent a few hours on the lake. The lake was a good size. My parents didn't catch any fish, but we had a lovely afternoon anyways.
On our canoeing escapades, my parents always fish, but I never do. Why? Because I'm too impatient to catch anything. But also because for me, the greatest part of being outdoors in God's masterpiece of nature is just thinking. Reflecting. Clearing my mind. Praying. And eating. Never forget eating.
That said, after almost single-handedly eating all of our snacks in our first hour on the lake, I sat back to take dozens of pictures and to let my mind wander. I slid down from my seat in the middle of the boat to sit on the floor of the canoe, and I reached over the edge of the boat to feel the water. It was a warm day but the water was cold and numbed my fingers as it lapped against my hand. But water... I love the feel and sound of water. It's so peaceful and lulling. Sitting on the bottom of the boat, I could feel the waves battering against the side of our canoe, and with a breeze across my face and the warm sun shining down on me, I drifted asleep, taking a twenty-minute nap as I felt all of my cares and thoughts of work and the unknown in my life fade away forgotten for a few hours. It wasn't about the past; it wasn't about the coming week. That afternoon was about that one moment, and for that moment, nothing else mattered.
I was sitting there feeling like Pocahontas as my dad steered our motorized canoe cutting across the lake. I felt the wind on my face; I watched the waves slip away behind us in foamy bubbles and gentle ripples, and the word that came to my mind as I took in its beauty around me was "Freedom."
Freedom. There's no one but the Lord who tells the waves which way to travel. There's no one but the Lord who tells the wind which direction to blow. There's no one but the Lord who tells the sun when and where to rise and set every dawn and every dusk. There's no one but the Lord who tells the trees when to burst into bloom, when to ripen full and green in summer, when to lose their foliage in fall.
Man may try, but there is no one who can restrain and control nature but the Lord. Apart from His direction, it has no boundaries, it has no expectations to fulfill, it has no imposed limitations.
And I realized as I watched its freedom that that's what I was made for. What each of us was made for.
I have a big future ahead of me. For as long as I can remember, I've sensed it, I've had it prayed and prophesied over me, and more and more recently, I've become aware of it. We all have big futures in our own ways, and I've felt so small at the thought of my own future and at the realization of how endless its possibilities are. The future is a very big place. It's intimidated me at times. My life has changed dramatically in just the past first few months of the year and it continues to change. It overwhelms me sometimes. I myself have changed dramatically in the past few months and I continue to change and mature emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and in character.
Through it all, I'm reminded that I have a big future ahead of me. I'm in a stage of life where I'm old enough now and in a place now where I can start embarking on my plans and implementing steps to make my dreams and those things that God's put on my heart a reality. I feel the responsibility and even the sobering of it at times more than ever in these recent months. I have a big future ahead. But I need freedom to thrive and reach the measure of everything that God has in store for me to do and be used by Him.
As I felt the waves dissipate against our canoe, as I felt the wind against my face and through my hair, as I felt the sun rays on my skin and heard the sound of the lake water, I captured the afternoon in an experience of all of my senses, and the Lord reminded me that I need that kind of freedom that He's given nature. It's the kind of life He intended for me to live. For each of us to live. But too often, we allow the opinions and perspectives of others to dictate to us what we can and cannot do. What is practical and realistic and possible. Too often we allow society's expectations and standards of what is "normal" and "acceptable" and "expected" to define our boundaries and limitations. To restrain our ambitions and to stumble our dreams and our goals. To fetter our feet from walking in the direction the Lord calls us to walk and to chain our hands from doing the work He has predestined and prepared us to do. To influence our minds and the way that we think into the cage of comparison where we begin to impose our own limitations and build the walls of our own confinement based off of what we observe as normal and expected and status quo in lives around us.
It isn't about rebellion: it's about being brave enough to step into the unknown and the unfamiliar and the uncharted, even when you walk alone and even when with some people, it will always make you unpopular. About rising above the boundaries that society tries to shackle us with and proving that there can be more to this life than it tells us there can be. There IS more to this life.
The future is a big place and the Lord has big things planned ahead for each one of us. There isn't room for allowing others to tell us what the unique and incredible life stories He has for each of us should like. That isn't my place or your place to define. I'm reminded time and time again that the fullness of what God has for us is about allowing the Lord and only the Lord to define and direct what my future and what your future looks like. It's about courage. It's about faith. It's being set free.
"For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." Galatians 1:10
"...charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life." 1Timothy 6:17-19
"Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand." Proverbs 19:21
"The heart of man plans his way,
but the Lord establishes his steps." Proverbs 16:9
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5&6
Little baby turtles... So cute! I love turtles.
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