A Lot of Pondering about Big Words like "Sovereignty"

Is it possible that God doesn't have a plan for our lives?

The validity of God's sovereignty is not something that we talk a whole lot about in evangelical circles. We assume it, emphasize it, and don't totally understand it. We tack on Jeremiah 29:11 without a second glance at the context (hint: unless you're an ancient Israelite, you can't directly apply that passage) and go about our business.

Fear not, however. With even a cursory exegesis and some basic hermeneutics, we can coincide our beliefs with that of orthodoxy and conclude that God is sovereign. He has a plan for His creation.

See? Even jerks are part of the plan. They help us feel better about ourselves...

But what about a plan--and by that, I mean a specific, pre-ordained, personal plan for our lives?
Seem cut and dry? It isn't as easy as that.

And even if you hold that such a plan does indeed exist (spoiler: I do), that doesn't make things automatically explanatory to the questioning and oft uncertain soul. People will ask questions. I suggest that if we ourselves are not asking similar questions, but instead remain behind a faux impenetrable wall of what is and is not up for discussion, we do ourselves a disservice.

What a world of hell we would be in, should our terrestrial existence here be undetermined and left to an unsettled deity, whose godhood consisted of twiddling his thumbs and making half-certain guesses as to what each day would hold.

Lately, that's been on my mind. What could be worse than the fact that my life is not controlled, not planned, and that the circumstances I have found myself in over the last year are all the result of a willy-nilly fate? That my faith is in a God that either doesn't give two cents about what's going on, or who says from heaven "Your guess is as good as Mine, Josh."

Sarcasm, yes. Truth? I think so.
And, truth be told, I would not still be around to write this if I wasn't confident that God isn't incompetent and that He is indeed a sovereign God with a plan.

I'd have taken myself out of the picture a long time ago.

So what, then? God is sovereign. He's in control. He's got this. He's armed with a plan. Awesome.
Big. Freaking. Whoop.
What does that mean, bro?

It means we can be confident. Confidence, at least for me, is always fluctuating. It depends on how familiar I am with my circumstances and surroundings--and I mean that both figuratively and very, very literally (i.e. AC Town).

If I'm not familiar with driving in downtown Columbus, then I'm not going to feel confident. But, as I drive more and more here in the suburbs of Westerville and Gahanna, my confidence increases. I know where things are (like the McDonald's I'm once again frequenting--although I'm having trouble finding a Starbucks).

Familiarity. I meant that literally too. I've been so far out of what I'm familiar with for so long that I've just had to accept a "new normal" and a "new familiarity." Eventually, you've just got to learn to accept the plan.

Unfortunately, we aren't let in on the plan all the time--at least not right away. Unfortunately the plan sometimes means moving to a new city you didn't expect to a month ago. Or struggling in a class you thought would be a piece of cake four months ago. Or not getting engaged over the summer like you intended to be a year ago.

As Dr. Rob Turner likes to say, "God didn't bother to ask me for advice." And we're so glad for that.

The tendency is to wonder. I'll shoot straight--all night I've been running through a lot of "what if's" in my head. Again, my favorite theologian sums up all those "what if" questions in one sharp, yet true statement. CS Lewis responds to such questions by saying the following:

"To know what would have happened? No. Nobody is ever told that."

Well shoot.

Honestly though, I think that's okay. You ever read a "choose-your-own-adventure" book? Those are great because, no matter what happens in the storyline you go with, you can always go back and see what would have happened had things been different.

We aren't afforded such a luxury. We don't get to see.
Oh, that's right. That's where faith comes in.

We serve a sovereign God. He's got a plan. Hold onto that.
Now excuse me as I go back and re-read all this.

God knows I need the reminder more than anyone.

AC-Town

It became an overnight joke with our friends at Cedarville. Rumors and jokes started coming in, as we tried to guess what this "AC-Town" actually was. Some of the best were that:

     1. AC-Town was really a sketch frat house. Or...
     2. AC-Town was really some haunted mansion. Or...
     3. AC-Town was really a cult (I'm still not convinced this one isn't true).

Yep. This response would come back to haunt me...

Boring but important backstory:
AC-Town was birthed out of a housing situation on the south campus of Ohio State University. Jake, Brian, and myself, three current or former department heads from Resound Radio (Cedarville's student radio station) are interning in Columbus this summer at 104.9 The River. One of our members had a connection with one of the men in this house, and had found space for us to sub-lease this summer.

But then we started getting more information about the house--or, as they call it, "The Shed."

Notice the key phrases...

Now, I realize that I'm a digital media major, but even I can do the math on this one. Six beds for nine people does not add up to the odds being in our favor. Crammed together with not enough beds in a strange house with strange people in a strange city.

And then I found out one of the guys goes by the nickname "Bearclaw." 

Oh, AC-Town. 

Oh Brian, no reason to be nervous...........

I arrived on Saturday afternoon. Brian and Jake arrived Tuesday night. Within just a few minutes of having all three of us there, we shut the bedroom door and conversed. The place was dirty, not well-kept, crammed, old, etc. We quickly decided that it was time to turn our backs on AC-Town forever and find a happy, quiet, and clean apartment elsewhere. A place with space for us, as opposed to trying to share a small house with 9-12 people. 

Without enough space to even sleep. 

Yeah, it was already time to bid adieu to AC-Town.

That was a pretty good summary of how we all felt.

We considered sneaking out. You know, tossing our stuff out the window in the middle of the night and all that? Not suspicious at all. But eventually, we thought better of it and decided to check out some apartments closer to the radio station in the morning. 

This summed it up nicely as well.

We held off on sneaking out. We went to our internship training day and hit it off really well with our fellow interns. Afterwards came all the apartment shopping, which none of us had actually done before.

 

We were more lost than the proverbial needle in a haystack.

We ended up finding one potential apartment complex that seems promising. More looking to come over the weekend. Hopefully, we'll be able to escape AC-Town for good on Monday morning.

But until then...

There are other hilarious little details and such. You can ask us about those individually. But now you're caught up on what's going to be a fantastic and infamous and story-filled and
 hopefully AC-Town(less) summer. 

What in the World Am I Doing Here?

I look around at a city with 800,000 people and wonder what in the world I'm doing here.

This isn't even close to what I'm used to. Most of my last three years were spent in a small college town in the cornfields of Ohio. My summers found me back in my 15,000 person town in the middle-of-nowhere: Michigan's Upper Peninsula. While to many, Columbus may not be that large, that new, or even that impressive, it's an altogether strange experience to be in a place like this for more than a brief overnight visit.

It's insane. This city is only an hour from Cedarville University, where I'm a senior digital media major. But the world of difference between cornfield college town and city college town makes them feel a million miles away from each other. I may as well be living on another planet.

I'm not used to everything being so spread out, so populated, and so...well...BIG. I'm not used to the smell of stale smoke everywhere, or limited parking on my one-way street, or so many restaurants, bars, and stores all in one location. I'm not used to locating a grocery store, walking there (to maintain my one parking spot I found at the house), and bringing back just enough cheap groceries to sustain me for a few days.

Then there's the house. I live on campus at Cedarville, so it's not like I'm not used to living with other guys and all that. But it's definitely a little different sharing a house, as opposed to a dormitory. One bathroom and one shower make it a little more difficult for folks with similar schedules. One washer and dryer, however, means the old college principle of "the best time to do laundry is late at night" is still holding true. Still...the entire feel of things is different.

And then there's the reason for being here to begin with--interning and working. With the incredible opportunity to intern with promotions/marketing at a radio station in Columbus also comes the need to work a job to provide financial stability for rent, food, and gas. Effectively working two jobs, balancing their schedules, and doing so in a new environment will prove certainly rewarding and certainly challenging.

That's not even considering Africa this summer, either. In the process of everything else, I'm also in the middle of raising funds for my July missions trip to Dar es Salaam, the capital city of the African country of Tanzania. Paperwork, passports, and the always uncomfortable support letters asking for money get thrown into the mix of unfamiliar territory for me this summer.

But here's my hope.

It's God. Plain and simple.

I can already tell that it's going to take deliberate action to keep myself engrossed in God over this summer. We're not in the Cedarville bubble anymore. As a crazed Theoden says to Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, Columbus has indicated to a "passive Christianity" that:

My summer looks like a practical outworking of everything Dr. Jeff Cook taught me over my junior year at Cedarville. I'm in downtown Columbus, living in off-campus housing at The Ohio State University (which pains me greatly as a Michigan fan, but I digress). Everything we talked about in Urban Ministry class can come into play.

Treating those on the margins with respect. Building up those around you. Looking to see people as half-full and not half-empty. Asset-based community development.

Then there's the July three-week trip to Tanzania...shades of Contemporary World Missions all over the trip. Respecting the culture. Not having a "savior-complex." Working and praying with folks and not for them.

At the end of the day, the song is right: "You're the God of this city."
Whether that be Cedarville, Dar el Salaam, or Columbus.

Let's go.