Do not worry

What do we do with the uncertainty we feel about the lives we’re living?

In 2022, I enrolled in my Bachelor of Arts with majors in linguistics and philosophy, equipped with a vague affinity for grammatical rules, Oxford commas, Euthyphro’s Dilemma, but not much else. Alas, I discovered one week into my first semester that I was most definitely not the philosophising type, so I bid Kant farewell and said shalom to Biblical Studies. All around me, people were pursuing professional degrees like education, nursing, or engineering. But here I was, shrugging nonchalantly whenever someone asked what my post-graduation plans were.

The first two years of university were tough. Uncertainty about the future was a constant presence, frustratingly persistent and impossible to get rid of. It was getting harder to live out the reminders in the very Bible I was studying to “not worry about tomorrow” when graduation loomed in my peripheral like a ticking time bomb. Unemployment? Don’t even speak that word!

But one day, a fateful conversation with a fellow Christian at a uni conference finally persuaded me that, perhaps, I was right where I should be. I got the sense that the seemingly “random” aspects of my life and experience could be leading me somewhere I hadn’t even considered.

Suddenly, everything made sense—the people I’d met, the major I’d changed, even sitting down to talk to this guy. And the seemingly “random” experiences I’d encountered weren’t so random after all; everything thus far had been preparing me for what was to come.

That night, I rested easy. Nothing about my circumstances had changed; but somehow, I was okay with not knowing where my future will lead.

At times, I still find myself plagued by uncertainty. But when I find myself wavering, it comes as a comfort to know that despite my inability to know what comes tomorrow, I can trust in the God who created it, knowing that He holds my hand. Even if our lives are a puzzle to us, they might still fit together – just in a way we can’t presently see.