The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands. Psalm 138:8, NKJV

Welcome to the season of caps and gowns, speeches and receptions, and of course, "Pomp and Circumstance" -- the tune that seems to play on repeat in our heads this time of year.  Graduations come with a great deal of celebration over what has been accomplished as well as an eager (or not-so-eager) anticipation about what lies ahead.  Our eldest just graduated 8th grade and has a pretty defined path to what's next in high school.  One of our nieces just finished high school, and she is opting to take a year off before continuing her education at an Adventist university.  A nephew of mine just completed his business degree at CU Boulder, but his next steps are a little less certain.  He knows when his apartment lease is up, but after that...he's still not quite sure.  Have you ever been there?  The uncertainty about what's next, what's best, or what to do now isn't relegated to just graduation time or major milestones.  It hits whenever we're reflective about aligning ourselves with God's will or fulfilling God's calling in our lives -- whether you're a new grad, a seasoned employee, a weary parent, a carefree retiree, you name it.  Whatever your unknowns, let me just share a few gems from the Psalms that God has used to bring courage to my heart this week.

Psalm 131:1-2

Lord, my heart is not haughty,

Nor my eyes lofty.

Neither do I concern myself with great matters,

Nor with things too profound for me.

2 Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,

Like a weaned child with his mother;

Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

It's a short psalm, but it's a prayer that seems particularly relevant when I feel a sense of overwhelm about making decisions or moving in a certain direction.  The reality is that even with the best planning, anything future-oriented is unknown.  We can't predict every outcome or response.  To think otherwise would be prideful and presumptuous.  If you're feeling anxious about your life calling or direction, Psalm 131 gives us permission to acknowledge our limits, recognize matters that are too great for us, and leave them in God's hands.  When we do, we'll be able to calm and quiet ourselves in God's presence like kids who can rest in their mom's arms for no other reason than to just be held.  No neediness, no pushiness, just contentedness in God's presence...and that's enough.  Why?  Because while results and returns are nice, relationship is everything.

Psalm 138:8

The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever; Do not forsake the works of Your hands. Psalm 138:8, NKJV

What is it that concerns you right now?  What plans, what projects, what pitfalls?  Whatever it is, we can take courage in the fact that God pledges Himself to bring all that to completion, even perfecting it for His glory and our good.  That's the enduring mercy of God.  When we think about fulfilling our calling and purpose, Psalm 138 reminds us that that is really God's work, not ours.  This reality guards our hearts from two extremes:  aimlessness and anxiety.

If the Lord perfects that which concerns us, then we don't have to settle for allowing circumstance to define our direction.  No, we can look to God as actively bringing His purpose to completion and fulfillment in our lives.  It wasn't just chance that brought my family and I to this place, at this time, in this neighborhood, in this community.  

I'm here on purpose, God's purpose.  And that fills each moment with meaning and opportunity.

Additionally, this picture of God in Psalm 138:8 guard us from the anxiety of having to be the ones to figure out what our life purpose is, or what we're meant to do and be.  While we have a role to make decisions and put forth effort in our present responsibilities, ultimately our lives are really the work of HIS hands, and he surely won't "forsake the works of [His] hands." (More on this in the next section.)  Living out our calling, then, is first a choice to rest in the promise that God will indeed perfect that which concerns us, even if we may not be fully cognizant of intricacies of how that's happening in real time.  When we rest in this, we'll be able to testify with the psalmist that God's mercy really does endure forever.

Psalm 139:16

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.

And in Your book they all were written,

The days fashioned for me,

When as yet there were none of them.

Consider this:  the very One who fearfully and wonderfully knit us in the womb has invested that kind of creative power in fashioning our days.  In this psalm, David testifies that just as God has miraculously formed our bodily existence, God is masterfully shaping our life purpose.  Again, this should relieve us of the pressure of having to fashion our days for ourselves.  The apostle Paul resonates with this idea in Ephesians 2:10 -- "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."  We truly are God's work of art, not just in a biological sense but in lifework and purpose, which is exactly why Paul clarifies that there are good works that God has prepared for us to walk in!  For each one of us, our awesome God has prepared and fashioned a life of usefulness, of eternal impact, of redemptive influence in this broken world.  

Friends, as we seek to fulfill God's calling, I pray that we would experience it as a joyful surrender to the God who fashions each of our days.  When things seem unclear or too great for us, that's ok and completely normal.  Seasons of uncertainty and overwhelm are really invitations to rest in relationship with God.  He after all is the One who is perfecting that which concerns us.  May we find that fulfilling our calling is less about accomplishing the right things at the right time, and more about accepting our identity as God's workmanship, trusting that our lives --as a whole and from day-to-day -- are being masterfully shaped by His power and not our own.