That's what I thought.

I'm not obsessed.

Really, I'm not. If I were obsessed, I'd be thinking about it all the time. But I don't. Just occasionally. Or even often.

But I think about it enough. Just enough, in fact, that I start to take the matter into my own hands.

At least I try.

The reality is, I'm just taking it into my own mind. The actual isn't meeting up with my ideal. In my head, my situation will change the more time I spend thinking about it, or the more energy I put into changing it. It makes sense, eh?

But there's a catch. (There's always a catch.) My future, the things that are going to happen in my life, the people I meet, places I end up, aren't determined by my volition. I can't will my future into existence. As much as I'd like to, it's just not going to happen.

So that leaves me to make a decision. My options are, keep on trying to control my future by thinking about it, looking incessantly for options, trying to control the situation. That sounds okay. I've done pretty well so far.

But the other option is to remember that my life is not entirely my own. A few years ago, I decided to put my trust in the God whom I believe to be the creator/sustainer of life. And even though I don't imagine the LORD of all creation is moving my life around like a chess board, I do believe that following my calling as a disciple of Jesus will lead me to the places, people and events I need to be a part of.

That's unsettling, because it's uncertain. How does it work? Where's the map? How will you know the landmarks?

I guess faith is more like a compass than a map.* It guides you in a direction, and you find out the landmarks on the way. The future is much more uncertain this way. Will there be a river? Waterfall? Lions? Killer bees? Lions with killer bees in their mouths so when they roar they shoot killer bees at you?** I have no idea.

But I do know the following:

I've never had a map before. And as I look back on the map I've made of the past, I've found myself in better places than I could have imagined.

Why stop now?

Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by Thy strength I've come
And I know Thy hand will bring me safely to arrive at home.

*Borrowed from Jimmy Long, The Leadership Jump
**Adapted from The Simpsons

A Wand'ring Heart? Remember.

"O, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter
Bind my wand'ring heart to Thee
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart, Lord; take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above"

I heard a rumor that the author who penned these words from "Come Thou Fount" eventually did wander away from God, losing all faith. Though I don't know how true that is, it does make me think.

From a man who acknowledges an acceptance of God's grace in his life come words painfully admitting his proclivity to leave his Savior. These words are a desperate prayer for God to literally "bind" the man's heart to God, because the man in his nature is constantly pulled away.

It is difficult to admit, but at times, I must pray this same prayer: "Bind my wand'ring heart to Thee." I am prone to wander. I don't know if it makes it any easier to know that I'm not the only one.

I was reminded yesterday that the Israelites were also prone to wander. Every time came God's same response: Remember. He constantly calls those who love him into the memory of who He is, what He has done, and who the Israelites are in relation to Him. He is their creator who has brought them into a chosen covenant. He has delivered them from slavery and has brought them into a land he has prepared for them. And they are His people whom he loves.

In some small sense, I identify with the Israelites. God is my creator who has known me and formed me for works planned in advance for me to do. He has brought me out of slavery to sin so that I have freedom to choose the way of righteousness. And, no matter where I wander, I am His.

In this Epiphany season as we celebrate Christ as the Light who has come into the darkness, may we remember. Let us pray that our wandering hearts be bound to His, and may we remember His desire for the hearts of all the world to be sealed for His courts above.