Expecting the Least Expected

During my senior year in college, we had a departmental gathering where the seniors and professors enjoyed a meal together followed by a time for conversation. That night is something I will treasure forever. It makes me giddy just remembering it. We had a vague theme for the night, "Accidental Roads," and each professor shared a little bit of their journey through college, seminary, careers, etc. The wisdom and insight they shared is as fresh in my mind as it was that night. The common thread in their stories, which matched the theme, was that they all had an experience which (seemingly) altered their direction. Here is a brief example: Dr. Curtis was set to graduate from seminary when he was told he would be one credit short. Although frustrated, he knew he could just take a course in the summer and graduate in August. So he scanned the summer course catalog for what sounded the easiest and allowed him the most time to play golf. What he chose was a course on pastoral care. Little did he know that the course required a nearly full-time schedule of chaplaincy hours at the local hospital. He didn't play much golf that summer, but he did discover what he wanted to do for the next several years of his life. Dr. Curtis teaches Spiritual Formation, Pastoral Care, classes on dealing with grief and death, and gave me my first opportunity to experience chaplaincy firsthand. Never in a million years would he have been able to anticipate the accidental road life sent him on, but it was his road nonetheless, fulfilling the desires of his heart.

I fear that I am too in tune with this particular type of phenomenon. It seems that any time something new happens in my life, my mind instantly jumps to, "Maybe this is the thing that turns life upside down and shows me my true calling." It ranges from big events to small ones, like yesterday when I bought a biography of Isaac Newton. On the way home I thought, "This sounds like one of those events...I buy the book because it sounds cool, then I fall in love with Newton and physics, go back to college, get a physics degree and work in science the rest of my life!" It feels like a mental condition I should be able to take pills for. Then I fall into more fear that if I guess it, then it's not an unsuspected thing, and therefore won't happen. I hear them readying the straight jacket now...

I am so eager to do the work that God has prepared for me. I firmly believe that I am in the place I am in for many reasons, and one day I will see how some of it played out and be amazed at His Hand. Looking intently is not bad I suppose, so long as it doesn't make you miss the experience of the present.