This season of my life is very shaky. It feels like with one move, any given part of my life could topple to the ground and I don’t even know where I’d start to try and rebuild the pieces. I seriously feel like my life is Jenga… which stresses. me. out.

Nothing in my life is solid ground. My job? Love it!… for now. It’s not meant to be my forever job, just temporary, however long Jesus intends that to be. My dating life? Temporary. Tomorrow I’m gonna be meeting with Daniel to actually sit down and figure out if it’s wise for us to continue dating… and either way is terrifying. Where I live? One year lease… and I’m already three months down. Literally no clue where I’ll be living a year from now, but I know it’s probably not gonna be with my current roommate, seeing as she wants to get married and I’m probably not invited into her marriage LOL.

And uncertainty doesn’t just make me a little worried… it actually exhausts me. I’m not satisfied in simply knowing what I’m made to do. If my dreams are yet to be answered, I constantly look for ways to make them happen… to snatch them up in my palms and force them to be, even though I know deep down that my hopes and dreams are safest in Jesus’s hands alone.

I spend the vast majority of my mental energy on trying to figure out what my forever job will be… or trying to solve the marriage puzzle. Or honestly even just trying to find a next step when I know that Jesus has purpose in where I’m at right now. It’s like I’m just scouting out everything and anything that I could possibly put my roots in and call home for more than two seconds. As if permanency on all fronts is required for building a home in Nash… and it leaves me feeling like I’m missing out because instead of feeling planted, I tend to feel like I’m floating in a lonely abyss.

But then there’s Psalm 77.

“I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember Your miracles of long ago. I will consider all Your works and meditate on all Your mighty deeds.” Psalm 77:11-12

This guy gets it. He knows what it’s like to stay up night after night asking the Lord to shed some light, to give some purpose, to put his restless heart at ease. In verse 4, he even says he’s so troubled that he can’t speak… that sounds miserable!

And yet what he chooses to do is remember the Lord. The psalmist meditates on the Lord’s past deeds because He sees them as future promises for the Lord to be faithful. He knows that God never changes, that He doesn’t move like shifting shadows. He’s the same God today that He was back then, and back then He freed his people from slavery to live in a land of milk and honey. He led them with fire by night and cloud by day and parted the stinkin’ ocean to deliver them from their enemies!!!! And today He’s still the God that always keeps His promises, that continues to be the good Father he’s always been.

And when we remember this, who God is, it spurs us on to trust and obey Him.

“…We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power and the wonders he has done… Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget His deeds but would keep his commands.” Psalm 78:4,7

The Lord readily equips us to obey and trust Him because it would be darn near impossible to live a life of following Jesus if we had to just trust Him blindly… if we had no way to see if He keeps His word or shows up when He says He will. Life with Jesus is hardly ever boring and always requiring trust in Him to be who He is, so He uses remembrance as a method to drive us into obedience and trust.

So, friends, we have to remember Him. We have to remember all of the times He showed up and came through so that we can look to the future with hopeful expectancy instead of fear and anxiety.

For me, I keep pictures that remind me of the Lord’s faithfulness. The one at the top of this page is one I hold onto dearly, proof that Jesus hears me even when I’m too shy to speak up. When I see it, I see all the American comforts that Jesus dropped on the doorstep of a homesick intern that made her Haiti home a lil more homey. When I see it, I see that Jesus cares that I have a home and that it’s through Him that Nashville will truly become a home. Remembering past faithfulness dries my tears on hopeless nights and encourages me to look up at the One that always looks at me with a smile and waits to shower me with goodness.

So, no. I don’t know if I’m going to ever be a musician or writer or missionary or whatever. I also don’t know how long I’ll be working where I’m working or where I’ll be living next spring… and I’m sure there are some things in your life that you’re uncertain about too. Are you graduating college and still uncertain about where to go? Maybe you need to remember that God Himself ordained all of your days before they even came to be and will be with you even if you settle on the far side of the sea (Ps 139). Or maybe you’ve been praying a long time for dreams that’ve yet to be answered… and you need to remember Sarah and the baby that the Lord gave her in her old age. Maybe you’re in such deep sadness, such hurt, that you’re uncertain how everything is going to work out… and you need to remember that God Himself weeps with you and longs for you to let Him comfort you. That Jesus is for you, on your side, fighting for you.

Whatever uncertainties we face, we can be certain about Jesus. That even if we don’t know where we’re going or what we need, that He cares for us and knows our needs. That He will provide, comfort, guide, and free us to love Him more and more and more. That He will never ever stop loving us, carrying us, and pursuing us. And that, friends, is the certainty on which we can build our whole lives.

All my love,