Our lives are always pointed toward god's hug

​I told a friend the other day, we get in these places in life that are new. Situations we've never faced. They feel foreign. Foreign enough that we can get to wondering if we're even supposed to be in this place.

Is this where God wants me to be?

I think part of that - maybe even a lot of that - comes from wondering if I am somehow messing up God's plan. Not God's plan for me, but just God's overall master plan. I mean, if I'm not where God intended me to be, then God's plan is no longer where God intended IT to be.

In the middle of our conversation, I felt the ridiculousness of that suggestion. This idea that somehow I - Keith - could mess up God's plan. There's an arrogance to that, I think.

And some self-destructiveness.

When we get to wondering if we've made a mess of God's plan, we have no other way of looking at this new place we're in as anything but a mess. When we get to believing our tracks aren't pointed to God's track, we have no way of feeling other than - off track.

Here's something that struck me in our conversation. Much of my life HAS BEEN off track. Yet, all of my life HAS BEEN pointed to God's track. I've come to know, on those thousands of days when my life has felt like a wreck, God has never once seen me as a wreck.

God has just kept working. Shepherding. Putting his hands on the small of my back or taking my hand or maybe even a time or two taking hold of my ears - one way or another - God has always been there saying, follow me.

To us sometimes, following feels distant. To God, following always feels like a hug.

We need to remember that when we get in these new places. We need to remember that while we're in something new, we're also in the middle of a hug. While we're in the middle of something new, feeling like nothing is working, something IS working.

God.

So go easy on yourself. Be patient with the process. Look forward to the day when following feels like a hug to you too. Because no matter how new something feels in this moment, it's always headed for that familiar embrace.

That's God's plan. No matter where we feel like we are in that plan right now, we're right where God wants us. Just close enough for a hug.