Finding Peace in the Uncertainty
I don’t know about you, but I tend to stress out about the future sometimes. It can be pretty easy to do. As of the time I’m writing this article (just past 4 p.m. on Wednesday, October 18, 2023), almost everyone currently in college was a teenager when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. A teenager is a hard thing to be in normal times, but when you add a literal pandemic to the mix, things can get...iffy.
So that brought a lot of us some uncertainty. I know people who held off on going to college for an entire year because they graduated in 2020, amid, well...everything. I know people whose school districts went back to school in August or September 2020, and people (myself included) who didn’t return to in-person classes at all until April or later.
On top of all of that, we were all trying to figure out what we even wanted to do with our lives, which isn’t exactly the easiest thing in itself. When I was a junior in high school, I wanted to be an English teacher. When I was a senior, I considered music education, then English again, and then took a psychology class and loved it. I came into college wanting to be a therapist, and quickly set my ambitions high, deciding that I would someday be a psychiatrist. Now, I’m not really sure what I want to “do.” Even if you haven’t been playing Career Parkour like I have, thinking about life after college, especially after the high school and early college experience a lot of us had, can bring a lot of uncertainty into our lives.
Jesus tells us in the Gospel of Matthew: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34 NIV).
This verse is comforting, but sometimes it’s hard to let go of whatever you’re worrying about. It could be finances, your grades, family troubles, or a fight between friends. Whatever it is, simply “not worrying” isn’t going to cut it. “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you,” says 1 Peter 5:7 NIV. Even this verse can sometimes fail to be comforting. Casting your worries and cares on God is a great idea in theory, but it’s hard to put that into practice as well.
There’s a phrase that I often use as a joke around my friends. When I bring up something that I have to do – let's say write a ten-page paper for one of my classes – and know that it’s going to be a struggle, I just say, “that’s a problem for future me!” Yes, in some cases, “future me” means “five minutes-later me,” but nevertheless, that’s the future, right? The thing is, even what I use this phrase to joke about isn’t really a problem for future me, no matter how small it might be. It’s God’s; it always has been God’s, and it’ll always be God’s.
Now, I’m not encouraging you to make God do your homework. I’m pretty sure that would count as cheating. But I am encouraging you to continue trying your best at whatever you’re doing but giving all the worries and negative emotions that sometimes come with thinking about the future to God to handle. He handled the weight of every sin in the world on the cross, so why can’t he carry your worry about your future career? About the numbers in your bank account? About your family, your friends, or whatever else? There’s no problem too big for God to bear for you, but – sometimes more importantly – there's also no problem too small for God to bear for you.
So when you’re feeling uncertain about the future, or even just about today, remember that you can be at peace knowing that God can bear all your worries and fears. Be at peace and recognize that uncertainty means that God is at work in your life. He already knows the future – and He knows how it will fulfill His purpose. Our only job is to let Him take the lead.
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:26-27 NIV).
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