"Which way to Never Never Land?"

Pretending to read:

Here I Am: Now What on Earth Should I Be Doing?

By Quentin Schultze

I’m doing a pretty unconvincing job at pretending to read Here I Am, considering I hadn’t even picked it up off my shelf until today. I’m supposed to be writing a 3-5 page essay about my “spiritual and vocational calling” based on this book, but as usual, I’m not feeling it. I mean, (1) I don’t like writing papers, (2) I don’t believe in the idea of “vocational calling,” and (3) I don’t even have any good ideas about my future from which to BS a paper, much less write one seriously.

Toward the beginning of the year, I started stressing out about the future. My counselor pointed out that this is crazy. I could have the next 10 years of my life planned out to the second and it could all change tomorrow. God does NOT guarantee us tomorrow. He doesn’t even guarantee us an hour from now. Worrying about my future won’t add a single day to my life. So why plan? Ok, maybe that’s just me being a bit irresponsible… or maybe it’s me learning to trust that God will provide my path for me when he leads me to it.

I could be doing a lot of things seven months from now. This week (World Opportunities Week) has been reminding me of all of my options. Even though the world feels full of choices, I feel overwhelmed about picking one. I’m pretty sure I’m moving to Indy this summer, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. No job. No apartment. Still, it seems like a logical step. Beyond that, my choices are endless. Do I get my MSW (I haven’t even taken the GRE, so this probably won’t work)? Do I join a newspaper staff? Do I move to Dublin and become a bum? I don’t even like Dublin that much! Why would I call that an option? Basically, I have no direction. Just scattered thoughts of things I could end up doing. I don’t feel “called” to any of them. But that makes sense.

A month or so ago, Kathy Bruner (my interactive media prof) really inspired me with this concept: Never in the Bible did God “call” someone to paid vocation. Our primary calling is to relationship with Him. The rest are just details. Whew! I can stop stressing.

My roommate loves Shel Silverstein and was sharing with me about her new favorite, Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back. Lafcadio is a lion who learns to shoot a gun, so he goes to the city and lives among sophisticated humans. He’s invited on a hunting trip where he faces a dilemma: either join the hunters and shoot the lions or join the lions and eat the hunters. He wants to do neither. At the end of the book, Lafcadio walks off alone; unsure of who he is because he doesn’t fit the mold. I can relate to Lafcadio. Here I am (ahaha), graduating in May, completely unaware of where I fit in this world. And so I’m walking off alone, but in faith.

"And [Lafcadio] didn't really know what was going to happen to him, but he did know something was going to happen, because something always does, doesn't it?”