We are in a long-distance relationship with the future.

I'm reading "The Sacred Romance" right now. It's all about how God wants to be intimately acquainted with us a lover, and how Satan wants to keep us from realizing that. 

Eldredge talks about how Satan speaks to us through thoughts that we think are of ourselves. I read that and thought to myself, "I can usually determine what's from God and what's a lie... I'm pretty knowledgeable in that area." 

I immediately switched over to a train of thought about an issue in my life that I think very negatively about. I've always thought very negatively about long-distance relationships, and I just don't like the thought of being in one. I've told myself before that I'll know that God wants me to be in a relationship when the right girl comes along who has all these characteristics and lives near me. If a girl doesn't have all these characteristics and/or doesn't live near me, it must not be of God if I find myself liking a person, so thought I. It must be a distraction from Satan that I have to kill. 

But wait. Don't I serve the God who created the universe? Don't I serve the one who not only moves the pieces, but made the pieces? I doubt that God can do anything? What am I thinking?

Well, it's not me thinking - it's me believing what Satan is trying to speak into my life. Do I think that long distance relationships are the best thing ever? No. But swearing them off altogether because I don't believe that God can make them succeed? That's a different thing altogether. It's fear. Perfect love casts out fear, and God has perfect love for me.  

I get so fearful because I imagine so far into the future in all my endeavors. I feel somewhat irresponsible if I don't have my future planned out, but I feel fearful once I plan it all out and see that there's so much there and so much to do and so much to be and so much and so much and SO MUCH. 

I need to rest in the day. I am not at that point. I need to rest in the week, the month, the semester. I do not need to worry about the rest of my life. God has that all planned, and I will find that as he unveils it. He has unveiled so much this summer that I did not know and could not have imagined. It will be like this for the rest of my life if I keep following him. I need to rest in this. 

I am not ready to rest in the day. But I am ready to rest in the semester. That is better than what I've been doing. At age 18 I had my life planned out till I was 40. I'm not even kidding - someone wrote an article on me as proof. It was in the paper. But it was so incredibly fearful.

So I am letting God be in control of my days. Is it a bit uncomfortable not knowing what's coming? Yes. But it is the way God wants it to be, and it takes away a lot of fear that I am responsible for making my future work. I am not responsible. I am called to follow in the steps that are laid out for me. And I will do it. 

No matter what God calls me to.