The Freedom of Not Knowing

I am always boggled by how to move forward in life...do you pray specifically or in terms of God's will alone? Do you make plans and take action or sit in the quiet, seeking His face and waiting for direction? How complacent and how proactive should you be?
We've made many moves in our lives...some I recall as being perfect, wonderful stepping stones. The move to camp where I met Jay. The move to marry him. The move back to Tallahassee in 2006. Others were blatant and obvious mistakes...our trip to the Mitsubishi dealership and our house hunt in Crawfordville come to mind...I would love to grab past Jason and Kathy by the shoulder and shake them violently...
Still, in the midst of mistakes and errors I've grown and learned a lot. It's weird that maturity and growth rise from the ashes of our most tragic mistakes and our darkest moments...if we allow ourselves to mature and grow, that is.
Lately, Jay and I have felt ourselves on the verge of 'something'. Sorry for the vagueness, but that's about as clear as it is to even us at this point. We feel a stirring of change, a healthy dissatisfaction with the way things are, a freeing realization that we are not stuck but a terrifying inability to see how it's all going to work out.
It's hard to know whether your desires are of God or not. Whether what you sense is something you should surrender and dismiss or embrace as God's moving. I don't know that I'll ever figure it out...
This morning, I had some quiet time while Jay took Caden to the gym. I sat in the quiet, unplugged the lap top, put the phone on silent and prayed for an extended period of time. I'll be honest, it's been a while since I've had a moment like that. I've been praying but not uninterrupted and not in depth. More popcorn-esque. I prayed about everything and everyone that popped into my head. I prayed for my children, that they would love God. I honestly care very little about what they chose as a career, whether they are strikingly handsome or talented...I just want them to love God. In praying this way, I began to think about how many children God has that don't love Him. I began to picture Him as a broken hearted Father, watching His children hoard their wealth, hate their neighbour, chose other god's because He is, for some reason, not enough for them. I pictured how many of his children he has witnessed be murdered, raped and abused...how many of them suffer and die due to hunger, inaccessible health care and preventable disease, while His other children sit back and watch it happen. I kept apologizing to Him and I think for a brief moment, He allowed me to feel a small percentage of the pain He feels as Father God...and how in spite of it all, loving us and creating us and dying for us is still worth all of it. Amazing.
With a renewed sense of God's love for me, I prayed about our future. Jay and I have been talking a lot about moving up north and although we hope to do that someday, we have no idea how it's going to happen. We don't have the money to move first and then find work but it's really hard to look for work in one state when you live in another. I've been overwhelmed by it all...knowing what we want but having no idea how to attain it. We've made a tentative plan as to when we'd like to move and where we want to be but it all feels empty and uncertain without knowing what God's going to do in the meantime...or where He'll have us end up.
Then I opened James. I figured it was a good place to start reading since Pastor Brian spoke from it yesterday. In the bible I was using, there was a headline over James 4:13-15 that said, "Our Will or God's Will."
Woah.
It said, "Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."
This is what I like to call a scriptural punch in the face. It taught me that it's ok to plan but plan knowing that God may (and more than likely will) shake things up...that He will make things happen that we never dreamed possible, in His time. That He will ground us when we need grounding and reign us in when we need reigning in. That He will make a way where there seems to be no way or He will slam a door that by all rights should be open.
Who am I to say what I was created to be and where I was created to live? Only the Creator knows what the creation was intended for and although it's still unnerving to be in the dark, it's comforting to know that He's got it. It's inspiring to hear other people's testimonies of miraculous faithfulness...how God swooped in, just in time, and blew their minds with problem solving skills they weren't capable of possessing.
I believe the stirring inside of me is in anticipation of great things to come...it's unsettling yet exciting...nerve racking but exhilarating. I am excited about the future even though I have no, sweet clue how it's going to work and I am basking in the freedom of not knowing.