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Am I Where I’m Supposed To Be?

Am I Where I’m Supposed To Be?

Last updated on: June 17, 2023 at 5:54 pm by Alicia Casner

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Am I Where I’m Supposed To Be? 2023-06-17T17:54:45-04:00 Alicia Casner

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A woman looks down as if doubting herself. Behind her are clocks overlaid over each other on grey and white background.

Image by NoName_13 from Pixabay

Am I where I’m supposed to be? The question that plagues nearly everyone at some point in their life.

Second-guessing and worrying about past choices and our current place in the world are attention thieves and downright exhausting. And when it grows so big as to overshadow our future, it’s easy to develop “analysis paralysis” (I didn’t come up with the clever colloquialism.), becoming stuck and unable to move forward.

This is why so many people doom-scroll hours each day, binge television and video games, or even decide to be done with it all and disappear, as much as possible, back into another era. None of these things are bad in moderation. The last can particularly be a fun, educational exercise. When these are used to hide from the world in which we really live, however, they kill momentum and we stagnate, becoming toxic.

I recently caught myself red-handed. I was spending increasingly long hours scrolling feeds and jumping from idea to idea. I should definitely go back to school. I should find land to put a bioclimatic house on. I should fight for the legal right to own chickens. I should respond to that email. I should get the car painted. The garage could be rebuilt, oh I know, into a greenhouse. I should put in a pond. Can I raise frogs? Can I sell flowers? I should start a flower farm. Should we move? Should we get into crypto?

Perhaps you are a stay-at-home mom and feel like all you do is laundry day in and day out or a cog in a corporate machine, and it feels like all you do is sit in endless meetings. It could be that you have decided God can’t use you in the city you’re in, or with the income you have, or in the calendar you keep.

A woman stands in front of a grey background with her hand on her chin as if pondering. There are question marks all around her head.

Image by Sophie Janotta from Pixabay

When suggestions and questions seem endless and come rapid-fire, I know I’m caught in a second-guess loop. I find I’m second-guessing the life I had and the way I got here, thinking I should’ve turned left instead of right back at that tree-lined street …

I know I’m not the only one. Statistics on just relocation annually are astounding – over 27 million Americans each year. (Forbes Magazine)

So how do we quell the doubts and bring calm into the mix?

Time for the not-so-secret weapon!

Remember, my lovely friends, we as Christians have a different screen through which to filter all of this. We have God’s Word.

$Mathematical formulas in white overlaid over a black background.$

Image by Elchinator from Pixabay

Scientists say that it’s 1 in 400 trillion odds that you would be born where you were, when you were, to who raised you, and with the exact details that make you – You. Looking at it through God’s Word we see an even more incredible statement.

Before we were even formed in the womb, our days were already accounted for in His book. He knew who you were going to be, the choices you were going to make, and where you would live and die.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

(Psalm 139:16 NIV)

This doesn’t give us a play-by-play blueprint and it certainly doesn’t take away our free will to make mistakes and take detours, but we have a promise to lean on for those times too.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 NIV)

Isn’t that a relief? Doesn’t that knock the weight right off your shoulders? I pray it does!

I pray if you’re struggling with feeling like you are “out of place” that this encourages you to have confidence in where you are right now and to dig into the Word even more.

Let’s trust God’s vision and timing, confident that here and now is the mission field we have been called to.

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