A I’ve been going through this whole “what am I going to do this summer??” mess, I’ve thought quite a bit about communication between God and me. I’ve been looking at this summer and waiting for “confirmation”. It’s a word I’ve thrown around quite a bit in the past. Essentially, it’s me looking for some kind of divine stamp of approval I can put on whatever I’m doing. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, I just didn’t realize how often I want that security in my decision-making process.
Secondly, I’ve been very concerned with the prospect of wasting or not wasting my time.Until I started thinking about this summer, I didn’t know I was so set on my three months of meaning. Whatever “meaning” means. Honestly, I think telling people I was going to do something “meaningful with my summer” was code for doing something that would make people think I was really cool nd spiritual.
I haven’t always been so interested in “meaning”. As I think back, I have probably had months or even years of meaninglessness, when I didn’t really think about whether or not God was doing things in my life.
Then again, it seems that one thing can happen, and you can look back at your life and see all these instances and events that somehow have led up to the place where you are right now. All of a sudden, detached circumstances become a chain, something useful, purposeful, occasionally beautiful, occasionally enslaving. So does your life have meaning when you finally put the last link on the chain, or did it have meaning when you were right in the middle of the chain links, seeing only randomness?
I choose to believe that life has meaning all along. Psa 65:11 says “You (God) have crowned the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.” Even in the midst of life’s randomness God always gives meaning, joy, and abundance. No, he doesn’t just give; he gives in overflowing abundance. I can look back at the events of my life, even this year, and see God at work. He doesn’t simply appear as a chain of events, but more like a melody, something that links little notes together into music.
So look for God in the randomness of life, and you will find him, the Rythym in the Noise
