(This may be a bit of an incoherent post, so if you don't get what I'm saying, it's me not you. That almost sounded like a break up.)
I'm currently writing an application to go back to uni...to do medicine. Yes, I know. A bit of a curve ball right there. And like all big, life-changing, momentous and important events, I'm not really praying about it. Okay, a couple of times I've screwed up my eyes and quickly said, "please make it happen" as if I was making a wish before blowing out candles on top of a birthday cake, but I'm struggling to commit it to God. The problem is this: I'm scared he might say no. Actually, it's almost getting to the point where I'm convincing myself he will say no.
I've turned this medicine degree into a one-stop solution to all my problems. I'll get a place on the degree, go to the Christian Union, make loads of friends, find a wife, have a good career to support my future family, get a good job, get a nice house, get a nice car, get a good pension, retire well and then die a happy man. I can't see a viable alternative to this plan either. At the moment my other future looks a bit like this: I don't get a place on the degree; do a PGCE instead, which I don't really want to do; be bitter about having to do a PGCE; miss out on a good university experience; make no friends and lose out on finding a wife; become a teacher; become more bitter about not being a doctor and having no family; turn to the bottle; lose my job after turning up to staff briefing drunk; lose my bedsit flat after failing to pay the rent; die alone on a park bench of chronic liver failure to be buried in a pauper's grave with no headstone. It's pretty bleak.
Not only is this just plain ridiculous, it also shows an insight into my sinful, human nature. Despite God being faithful to me again and again, I'm forgetting how God is the provider of good things. Instead of turning to God to give me all I need, I'm turning to a degree in medicine. I'm also forgetting that if God decides that medicine is not the path I'm taking, it's in my best interest. God's plan is to prosper me, not for me to die a lonely alcoholic.
And the reason I believe he will say no is because a small (but annoyingly noisy) part of me thinks God is vindictive. Because I have failed to show faith in his provision, because I have made an idol of a degree and because I believe I will end up dead in Hoglands Park if it doesn't happen, God will spite me and take away the only chance of happiness I have. As a result, I will rather cling onto the degree than give it over to God, for him to either say, "yes" or "no, but I have something better."
God's plan for me may not involve medicine. It may involve sacrifice. It may, at times, be pretty hard. But it'll be a lot better than anything I can think up.
Quick Questions
- What do you cling onto too tightly?
- When has God said no to you? What was the result?
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