God knew where I was headed. god knows where I am going.

​I have had several opportunities lately to recount the path of my life. And so many times in the retelling of that path, I have been awed by how perfectly the events and circumstances and people of my past were placed to prepare me for my today.

Too perfectly for me to ever consider it an accident - too perfectly for me to not believe someone was preparing me for a day I was completely incapable of preparing myself for.

I was telling a young woman about my career path earlier this week. I told her about the unlikely job I took right out of college. A job that literally fell into my lap. I had just received a business degree, yet a few months later I was living in the woods counseling struggling teens.

That was not my plan, but there I was.

When I was done talking to her, she said, you wouldn't be doing what you are today if it weren't for that first job.

No. I wouldn't.

Last night I spoke to a local non-profit about the healing power of relationships. I started that talk by telling them I wouldn't be there talking to them if it hadn't been for that unlikeliest of jobs 30 years ago.

But standing there - saying that - I knew God knew I'd one day be standing there. Thirty years ago God started forming the language I would use with this group last night.

It's powerful to look back and see the all knowing presence of God in my life. It's miraculous.

But that's not a miracle meant to highlight the nature of my God in the life I have lived. It's meant to remind me that God is right now - in this writing - shaping the direction of my life today and tomorrow.

There is no value in seeing the God of my past if it doesn't flame the trust I have in the God of my right now.

The struggles of my past have perfectly prepared me for the peace and struggles of my right now. So how can it not be that the peace and struggles of my right now are placed perfectly to prepare me for tomorrow.

How can I not see the prophetic work of God in my past and not trust that he is prophetically using today the very same way.

I don't know is my answer. I don't know how I can not see that. But I confess there are days I don't see it. There are days I see this perfectly blazed trail of my past - even with all of it's destruction and darkness - and wonder where the heck God is today.

Every day I know that God has always known where I was headed, yet there are still countless days I don't trust God knows where I am about to go.

It helps, though, to recount that past. To tell my stories. I can never tell them without seeing God as the leading character.

I cannot tell them without being reminded that he is still leading.

And little by little I trust more that he knows where I am going.

Even when I don't.