Isn't that just life?

[A delightful piece of history from the International Thespian Festival my freshman year of high school (: Just thought I'd share a bit of visual stimulation.]


This past week has been a weird, odd, awful, wonderful, crazy, calming, everything in between sort of week. Once again, I think I've crossed another threshold in my spiritual quest for knowledge and understanding when it comes to our interactions with the Lord. Allow me to elaborate.

See, many times I have been struck by a spiritual prompting and automatically assume that this is the only right path. This is what the Lord wants me to do forever and ever and if I stray from it now, it's on my head. This idea can overflow into many facets of life: educational, social, dating, vocational, etc. My thoughts were, "What am I supposed to do, Heavenly Father?" And then I would feel good about something and pursue it.

But I think our Heavenly Father is much more merciful than that. The more I get to know of Him, the more I'm assured that He's a very flexible God when it comes to living our lives. I've heard multiple times that when asking the Lord a question, like marriage for example, you shouldn't approach Him with, "Should I marry this person?" Rather, you should go forward, and tell the Lord, "Listen, I love this person and you're going to have to drag me kicking and screaming to look for anybody else. Stop me if I'm wrong." The Lord knows what is right, but He also knows our personal thoughts, tastes and preferences. He knows our weaknesses and our strongest motivations and what will ultimately make us as individuals happy in the best way our individual selves could be happy. He knows these perfectly at every point in our lives and our constantly changing natures.

Let me put it this way: If you would love nothing more than to become a dentist, by all means, you should go into dentistry. And the Lord will probably support you in that. But if something doesn't work out; if your classes never match up or you discover the bitter world of dentist politics or a better profession comes along, don't feel bad that you felt right about dentistry in the first place. The Lord didn't lead you astray. He merely guided you in a path that would make you happiest at that point. It doesn't mean that He will always guide you along that path. This whole series of events is a process in which we need to experience all the parts, good and bad.

I'm not sure why my life takes me in different routes, and I'm not sure why some things match up and some things don't, but I truly believe in the concept of taking things line upon line, precept upon precept. The Lord will work with us, strengthen us at every stage, and He will be our advocate in every righteous pursuit.

I'm having my ups and downs at the moment, but this new epiphany has brought me comfort and solace:

Just because life backs out on you sometimes doesn't mean the Lord backs out, too. And it doesn't mean that you were wrong.

That's my take home message for you all. Vague? Maybe. Applicable? Hopefully. From the depths of my spirit and my heart? Most definitely.

Love to all,
Whit