So, there I was, still convinced that the Oscars were calling my name like perfect, golden sirens. At this point, I can almost see God rolling his eyes and chuckling to himself. "Well, looks like those two weddings weren't enough to wake him up to reality. Time to pull out the bigger guns."
Those bigger guns came in the form of one of my close friends, whom I randomly asked out of the blue one day, "How did you know what God wanted you to do with your life?" Expecting some huge, life-changing answer, I was taken aback by the simplicity of his answer. He went on to explain to me how he had always assumed God would eventually just light up his future with a big neon sign. Turns out, he never really got any huge confirmation from God, but rather small little nudges here and there. The rest was just sheer and utter trust. And I realized then that God is pretty strategic in these matters - he gives us enough nudges for us to realize the path he's pushing us toward, but leaves just enough loose ends so that we're never too comfortable, and are always having to fall back in real, authentic trust.
After that conversation, my heart opened slightly. I was suddenly more willing to maybe focus on the ministry aspect of film making rather than the Hollywood aspect. Maybe God could have a starring role in my films, rather than get stuck as that random extra on the far left corner of the set. Fast forward a few months, and I'm back working at summer camp, with the added duty of documenting the summer. You know, all of the big events. With, like a... a video camera.
Ensue the all too familiar state of sheer dread and frustration. No matter how hard I tried, hauling the camera around with me was always such a nuisance! I hated the stupid thing. However, it wasn't until about halfway through the summer, when I had the opportunity to chat with one of my dear friends who came up for the week, that everything changed. She told me all about her college, and about the different ministry degrees they offered and their huge focus on reconciliation. They really stressed reconciling people as Christ reconciled the world, through conflict resolution, peace meditation, social justice, etc.
And suddenly it hit me. Once again, Jesus just jumped out of my mechanical heart with his classic sniper rifle and blasted the robotic piece of cardboard to pieces. All this time, all of the tiny little nudges finally made sense! The scattered jigsaw puzzle dreams no longer needed to be shoved relentlessly in a futile attempt to fit them together. Now they came together in perfect harmony, connecting to form a living, beating heart. It was still completely raw and covered in blood, but it was real, pumping real blood like electricity through my veins. It was shocking in its strong voltage, but I had never felt more alive.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I had time to collect my thoughts and really just surrender the shattered fragments of my mechanical heart to God. With that surrender came a new nudge, a nudge away from films and toward ministry. I still have no idea what kind of ministry that will be, but I do know that it will be focused on reconciliation. I love the idea of bringing people back together, toward Christ, as complete equals. Finally, after two years, God was finally able to bring down my little boxed house and open my eyes to the beauty of His plan for me, versus my plan for me. My head's still reeling from the complete 180 turn-around. Sometimes I still think God just occasionally looks back at those two years of close-mindedness and flat out belly laughs, shaking his head and saying, "After all this time, now you listen to me! You silly, silly boy."
Now, I know that not everyone's going to have their dreams completely destroyed, only to find themselves on a totally new path for life, but I believe there's a deeper theme running throughout this story, one that binds us all together in our sheer lack of it: trust. No matter if you've been planning on nursing school since the age of three, or are graduating college still completely unsure of what you want to do, God calls for nothing less than our complete and utter trust. It's a truly terrifying thought. For if we're really honest with ourselves for a split second, we'll realize that no matter how many plans or goals we carve like stone in our minds, God will always be bigger than every single one of them. Plans and goals are not inherently evil, but the moment they grow bigger than God, they're nothing but dead trees in the eye of a hurricane. But when God stays fixated in the center, when he's given the opportunity to expand in the midst of our scattered jigsaw puzzle dreams, they will flourish like oaks of righteousness, bathed in sunlight and cleansed by the rain, sprouting up to bless others under the shade of their branches. It's unnerving letting God get that big, because it also means that we have to get that much smaller and relinquish our need for constant control. And let me tell you from experience, the moment that happens, all bets are off. You never know what God's got planned up his sleeve next. And that's almost as exciting as it is scary.
Almost.
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