"Maybe" is a difficult word for me.
"Definitely yes": I can plant myself deep in that
solid ground, entwine my life around that anchor, and write it in permanent
marker on my calendar.
"Ain't gonna happen": I can loosen my grip on the
dream, rent a U-Haul to move out of that plan, and pull out the white-out to
erase it from my memory.
But "maybe" is another story. Do I turn the page or
not? Do I plant deeply or not? {Because spring is on its way and I need to know
now...} And when do I pull out the permanent marker versus the eraser?
Yesterday the maybes were eating away at my thoughts. They
were a tumble that was rapidly turning into an avalanche. "I can't decide
this until I know this, and I can't know that until I figure out the other, and
I can't know the other until..." It was an avalanche of unrest and
disquiet until God reminded me that I do
have a lifeline: "Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you."
{I Peter 5:7}
So I wrote two columns for 2017: "Maybes" and
"Definites."
I filled in the columns and sat back, surprised. I was surprised
by how few maybes there really were. And I was shocked to stare at them in black and
white and realize this: they were all enjoyable possibilities, but I was
letting the possibility of not enjoying them steal my joy. Not only that, but I
knew I couldn't do all of them and couldn't choose between them, yet I had been
expending fruitless energy in worrying that God would make a mistake in
choosing which things should define my year. So instead of being defined by my
definites, I was trying to define my life by my maybes, and the result was an avalanche of anxiety.
The definites, on the other hand, the things I can write in
permanent marker, were far more crucial than the maybes:
I will definitely not find the end of God's love this year.
Jesus will definitely not leave me.
God is definitely sanctifying and refining me.
It was a simple exercise of pen and ink, but truth was
suddenly illumined. If God has given me
such solid, anchoring, permanent definites, then why don't I trust Him to
define the maybes? In what universe does it make sense to let anxiety over the
possibility of missing a maybe steal from the joy I could be relishing now
because of the definites?
And at what point do I let anxiety over the maybes define my
life? I say definitely never. Instead, I will plant myself in the love of God,
anchor my soul in His faithfulness, and broadcast in permanent marker that He
is good! Because He definitely is.
“Maybe:(,” © 2012 Priscila Tonon Ramos, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/.
