The Butterfly Effect

Do you ever want to go back and change things that have happened in your past? I'm sure we all do. It is easy to look back on our lives and see the chain of events that lead up to where we are now. We can see those links that invariably join us to that person, place, event in which our lives changed. I swear there is a country song about hindsight being 20/20, but what I see today is totally unexpected from what I expected to see 5 years ago. When they asked me at graduation where I saw myself in 5 years, I confidently responded, "Wherever the Lord will lead me." I didn't realize what that meant as a teenager, although I did my best to live it out. What is so fascinating about our lives is when you look back and see just how fragile some of those links seem, you can see just how strong the hand of God was in orchestrating your life. Had there been one or two links missing from my chain, the whole course of my life would have been different. It's like, but only vaguely, The Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher. Yet I can see a divine plan in my life, not a twisted and morbid sense of fate. In the past 4 years, I have been a college student, full-time youth and children's minister, 4th grade teacher, and a volunteer in the soundbooth at church. During all of this transition I ask, "Where would you lead me Lord? Where will I go?" My biggest thing hasn't been questioning God's will for my life, but in making sure I am honoring Him in all that I do. 

Leaving with a lesson for today: So, whether YOU are a student, teacher, minister, volunteer, laborer, God has a plan, it will come about, but OUR biggest responsibility in it all is to honor Him in all that we do.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
(Colossians 3:17 ESV)