At the crossroads
Sooner or later I will have to decide. I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’m in a clutter, and it’s hard to think. I’m too overwhelmed—choked, if you will—by the tide of circumstances that I can’t breathe enough wisdom into my brain. And so the choices remain unchosen on my table, like fluorescing buttons emitting a different glow—and each just as beautiful as the others. But which one do I press?
Clearly I don’t have the answer right now. I wish I could say I know what I’m going to do with my life. There are a thousand possibilities for me, and each decision I make opens new doors but closes a whole lot more. This is one of them.
I’m talking about which laboratory I’m going to be applying to. Where I study, undergraduate students need to affiliate with a particular lab. It’s where we’re supposed to spend a year’s worth of scientific work for our thesis—and perhaps, discover finally if we’re really cut out to be scientists that will, as a friend puts it, rock the world.
Each lab has its own specialty—there’s one that works with mice, another that works with bacteria, or with plants, or with snails. If I choose one, I lose the chance of being in all the others. And if I choose, will I get chosen?
It’s not a light decision—I wish it were. But in the midst of being drowned in deep thought, I’m thankful that I have God to help me. I don’t talk about God as some distant celestial being who simply observes the world without taking any part in its operations. No, the God I’m talking about is the God of the Bible. He cares for me. He knows me personally. He is the God I talk to, who hears my prayers, who knows my desires, who knows all my sins. He is the God whose Son, Jesus Christ, died on my behalf. And He is the God who knows what is best for me (Romans 8:28).
I need God to search my heart. I may be harboring wrong motives, pride, contempt, and ungodly ambitions. So I take heart in what the Psalmist wrote so beautifully:
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
Psalm 139:23,24
Knowing God more should be my focus in deciding. David wrote:
One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.
Psalm 27:4
This was reinforced by what CS Lewis, one of the writers I love the most, wrote in his essay, Learning in War-time:
But if we thought that for some souls, and at some times, the life of learning, humbly offered to God, was, in its small way, one of the appointed approaches to the Divine reality and the Divine beauty which we hope to enjoy hereafter, we can think so still.
Sooner or later I will have to make the decision. I pray that the Lord enable me to make the right one.
Clearly I don’t have the answer right now. I wish I could say I know what I’m going to do with my life. There are a thousand possibilities for me, and each decision I make opens new doors but closes a whole lot more. This is one of them.
I’m talking about which laboratory I’m going to be applying to. Where I study, undergraduate students need to affiliate with a particular lab. It’s where we’re supposed to spend a year’s worth of scientific work for our thesis—and perhaps, discover finally if we’re really cut out to be scientists that will, as a friend puts it, rock the world.
Each lab has its own specialty—there’s one that works with mice, another that works with bacteria, or with plants, or with snails. If I choose one, I lose the chance of being in all the others. And if I choose, will I get chosen?
It’s not a light decision—I wish it were. But in the midst of being drowned in deep thought, I’m thankful that I have God to help me. I don’t talk about God as some distant celestial being who simply observes the world without taking any part in its operations. No, the God I’m talking about is the God of the Bible. He cares for me. He knows me personally. He is the God I talk to, who hears my prayers, who knows my desires, who knows all my sins. He is the God whose Son, Jesus Christ, died on my behalf. And He is the God who knows what is best for me (Romans 8:28).
I need God to search my heart. I may be harboring wrong motives, pride, contempt, and ungodly ambitions. So I take heart in what the Psalmist wrote so beautifully:
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
Psalm 139:23,24
Knowing God more should be my focus in deciding. David wrote:
One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.
Psalm 27:4
This was reinforced by what CS Lewis, one of the writers I love the most, wrote in his essay, Learning in War-time:
But if we thought that for some souls, and at some times, the life of learning, humbly offered to God, was, in its small way, one of the appointed approaches to the Divine reality and the Divine beauty which we hope to enjoy hereafter, we can think so still.
Sooner or later I will have to make the decision. I pray that the Lord enable me to make the right one.
Labels: faith
posted on January 24, 2008
2 Comments:
i pray the Lord will guide you through all this Lance. :D
whatever your choice may be...
the best pa rin ang MML! hahaha :D
seriously though, whatever your choice may be, the block will always be here for you, making you laugh when you get really ugly gels and you haven't got a slot in the PCR machine. :D
loves you IZzy!!!
aw, thanks joe. how fast time flies. sooner or later, we'll have to start on our theses!
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