‘Till I only dwell in Thee…
It’s been ever such a long time since I posted a blog. I’ve missed it…
Time was one constraint for an awful long time. Unlike when I was at university, while I was working, I didn’t have buckets of free time or the odd few late nights to protract residence amidst the solitude of my study.
I once noted that in my teenage years I often felt like another link in the chain of endless human mechanisation. I often prayed that my adult life would be different and, granted, for a time, it was. Lately, however, that has faded into distant memory. The 9-5 machine dragged me into it’s inner workings and secreted me there with little hope for escape.
Thankfully, I didn’t completely remove myself from my hopes and dreams. I exercised my right to write, albeit mostly fiction, and I continued to pray that I was making a difference to someone’s life, albeit here in Ballymena and not in Belfast where I often thought that I would spend my days…
For those of you who don’t know me personally or for those who have lost touch in recent years, I’ve been temping in a local college library. It’s been a strange experience and it has swung from extreme lows to, most recently, elated highs. I think I realised about a month ago that, actually, I quite liked that job. For years I’d insisted that I wasn’t a librarian and I didn’t want to spend my days there. In the fairly recent past, however, I concluded quietly and to myself that actually, I didn’t to be a librarian to enjoy working in a library. The pleasure that I could derive from just helping someone in any capacity was immeasurable. When the students bid a fond farewell to me on their last day I realised that I was heart-broken to see them leave. Moreover, if the cards they gave me were sincere, they were maybe a tad sorry to have to say goodbye as well. It means a lot to know that you’ve helped someone, even in the smallest of ways like finding a book for them. The librarians often spoke in grand terms of customer service and learner satisfaction but, for me, helping someone was never about the profile of the company. I thanked God daily for giving me opportunities for indiscriminate acts of kindness.
The inherited problem with temping is that, one way or another, it ends. I guess it’s all in the name… Temporary…
When the librarian told me, going on a month or so ago now, that my job was coming to an end and that if I was needed in the next academic year, it would be for a fewer number of hours, I was gutted. I was heartbroken to say goodbye and crushed that I may well never see the students who I’d come to know so well ever again. If I did get back, I’d be a stranger to most of the new folks – a drifter who sidled into the library a couple of times a week.
I prayed about it a lot and a few nights I even drove into the campus just to sit staring at the sign while praying, hoping for some grand epiphany or revelation…
It never came…
The thing is, this isn’t just a concern which has pounced on me for the first time in the last couple of months. This situation feeds into a much wider problem which has plagued my adult life thus far – What do I do next?
I’ve already mentioned how, for a time after university, I was deeply upset that my path didn’t seem to lie in Belfast where I invested so much of my soul – hopes, dreams, visions and prayers of mine had seemed to orbit that city for two years and yet, when I left my direction to God and prayed that He would place me where He wanted me, I ended up in the most unlikely of places…
For a year and a bit, God put me in Antrim – a town which I’d maybe passed through twenty times in my life. I had good times and bad times there, all of which were ultimately overshadowed by the sad news that the college group intended to close the Antrim campus down. With that news came the news that I was moving as well. With no need for extra staff in a campus which was being run-down, I was to move to the campus in my home town of Ballymena.
Again, my prayers over the summer months during my job move echoed my confusion. Why was I in Antrim? Did I achieve what I was supposed to there? Did I do what God needed me to do there? What awaited me in Ballymena? As it turns out, it was a wonderful year. I met some amazing people, made some great friends and really felt like I’d helped a lot of folks.
So this summer I’m faced with the same confusion. Am I to stay in Ballymena? If you put me here God, why are they cutting hours? Am I supposed to leave? Was I making a difference here? Why can’t I continue to make a difference? What’s next?
Wow… That’s the million-dollar question right there, isn’t it? What’s next?
I’d be willing to wager that if I end up tagging this post with Christianity and even one or two random folks stumble upon it for that reason, they’ll be asking the same question. What’s next? I mean we all ask that question daily, right? Even if, unlike me, you are settled in a job then maybe you’re asking that question of your personal life.
What’s next?
I wish I knew what to say to answer that question. I wish I could answer it for myself. I even wish that I could say (to both you and me) that it will be something good…
So many folks are fond of quoting a portion of Jeremiah 29 in these situations:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope…”
Jeremiah 29:12
I think, however, that the context of this verse can mean more than the verse itself. Jeremiah was writing this letter to exiles – captives removed from Jerusalem and held in Babylon. Jeremiah wanted to reassure them that God had not forgotten about them – that His sons and daughters who felt trapped there were still in his mind and that He would look to them. Jeremiah makes it clear, however, that it’s no quick fix:
“Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children… You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again…”
Jeremiah 29: 5-11
I think that’s the important part. Maybe we get disappointed because we naturally assumed that because we are Christians, God is going to make everything come up our way and maybe that’s not always going to be the case. Maybe Jeremiah’s wisdom need’s to be at the fore of our minds in this case. Make the best of it. God hasn’t forgotten about you. He has got good things planned but it might be a wee while yet…
That still leaves me in a quandary… What next? Whatever it is, I will make the best of it and I will trust that ultimately God has something in mind, but still… What next?
That’s a question I still can’t answer because I don’t know. All I can do for know is pray and trust that God will grant me the wisdom to know where He wants me – that He will open the doors which I need to go through.
I was coming home from a friend’s house tonight and I hit Ballymena at about 11:45pm. The dark hue of the evening clouds were shot through with the faint brightness of the waning day. It was beautiful. I decided to take a detour to the college campus which I’ve called home for the last year. I stopped my car and I prayed. I prayed for wisdom – to know what to do next. I prayed for guidance – for instruction on how to take the next step. More than anything, however, I made the same prayer I’ve made since I became a Christian – I prayed that God would take my life and do with it what He wanted to – whatever that was.
An amazing song struck up on my car radio. My ipod was playing the Brooke Fraser album I’d bought on itunes last week. The words of her song, simply entitle Hymn, struck a real chord with me. I think her words really reinforced my prayer this evening.
In the introduction to this blog, I described it as something like a travel journal – charting my voyage through life. As the years pass and looking over many of the concerns and fears I’ve charted on these pages thus far, I’m starting to believe that maybe the journey itself isn’t the thing to set my sights on. Sure, it’s the scary part – not always knowing which turn to take next or where I’m going to end up – but maybe there’s no need to fear that part when I’ve already got my destination plotted.
I’ll keep travelling whatever roads I’m set upon ‘till I only dwell in Thee…
If to distant lands I scatter
If I sail to farthest seas
Would you find and firm and gather ’til I only dwell in Thee?If I flee from greenest pastures
Would you leave to look for me?
Forfeit glory to come after
‘Til I only dwell in TheeIf my heart has one ambition
If my soul one goal to seek
This my solitary vision ’til I only dwell in TheeHymn by Brooke Fraser
