Life After College

In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)

Is that good or is that bad? The plan is for things to go according to plan; it's a given that when I plan something to go a certain way, I want it to go that way. I'm a person who trusts a lot in his own thinking, my own way of seeing things in the world, my own logic. I want the world to fit my picture of it. I'm glad God knows better. In my foggy moments, I think I see clearly, but in my clearer moments I realize I'm nearsighted. It turns out I'm a silly sheep, following his own small mind trying to do things that seem good, unaware really of what I'm doing. Thankfully I have the Lord as my shepherd, who watches over me in every way.

I've officially been working a week and two days now. I found out on the first day that because I'm now in the construction industry, I'll be working 7am-3:30pm. Discovering that, I determined to wake up at 5am to have time to do DT's, and I've been successful so far. My first reaction is to say it's thanks to exercise and a regular sleep schedule. My mom would say it's the Holy Spirit. Someone else might say it's the testimonies of others (like the one given at winter retreat, and some other old friends). I think all of the above. It's been hard to go to sleep early, and I need to get better at it, but I'm working on it.

The commute from Daly City to Berkeley can be brutal sometimes, taking up to an hour and fifteen minutes. One day last week, I was particularly frustrated because I had to make copies of these 24" x 36" schematics at Kinkos, and the copier was particularly uncooperative, making the whole trip take maybe three times as long as expected. The boss was having me run some errands that day after which I could go home early and miss traffic, but because things took longer than expected, I hit traffic anyway and was stuck in painfully long traffic jams. I was getting pretty unhappy with myself and the situation.

At the same time, Pastor Ed's words kept bothering me. I remember him saying in his sermon once that we have a warped, ungrateful perspective of the world. People come to him complaining about their jobs, and he wants to respond wait, you HAVE a job to complain about? Thinking about that quieted me down a bit, because I realized yeah, I am really lucky to have a job, a lot of people don't. And even though I'm still stuck in traffic, I'm actually still getting home earlier than I would have. But... I was still not happy.

I turned the radio to NPR, and I listened to a boy from India talk about his job as a metalwelder and the harsh conditions there. Because his family has no money, he has to work in a factory handling scorching hot metal with his bare hands. When his bosses feel lazy and want to take a nap, they make him use the metal blowtorch, without any safety equipment. If his hand shakes at all when cutting the metal, the blowtorch will cause metal sparks to fly up and hit him. Listening to the boy, I felt thoroughly rebuked for being unhappy with my comfortable American job.

On a different note, this past weekend was pretty fun. On Friday, visited Acacia, the young adult group for DCCC. On Saturday, met up with Emmanuel in the morning, went to the library, came home and knocked out for a little while, played tennis, went to youth group. On Sunday, went to church, played nerf wars, drove back to Berekely. Starting this upcoming Sunday, I'll be teaching Course 101 for Sunday School. Pretty exciting! Gotta put some more time into it. Please pray for that.

Earlier this week, I locked my keys in my car, which added stress to some other thing I was stressing about. Mostly, I get upset at myself for making mistakes. After everything was resolved, though, I felt pretty happy at how things went. Yeah, things may not go according to plan... didn't end up doing staff intern like I meant to, didn't mean to mess up so many copies at Kinkos and hit traffic, didn't mean to lock my keys in the car. But the Lord watches over my steps, and everything, even my mistakes, are not outside of his sovereignty. He watches over me and directs everything for my good.

And, well, He directs not just through circumstances, but through His people too. "Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance" (Proverbs 20:18). The guidance I've gotten from friends and older people have been invaluable, and they've been really good at giving me direction, encouragement, while at the same time grounding me. Yep, really thankful for my friends.

So yeah. I'm pretty happy right now. Thanks to me? No. But thanks to my shepherd, who watches over me and determines my steps, and guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. God is good, therefore life is good.