All In His Plan

Summer 2024

- there was amazing spiritual stuff going on in my life!

For one, I got baptized in the Tolt River at Tolt MacDonald Park in Carnation on a warm sunny Sunday in July.  It was time.  I’ve believed in God and been a Christian for long while, having grown up in the church. I’d been thinking about my life and faith.  I have known baptism was the right thing to do, but I realized it was the right time to do it because my faith has really started to blossom a bit more.

What I mean by that is something that is super weird and completely out of the blue.  I wasn’t reading up on faith and then started seeing something.  No. Surprisingly, it was straight up I started seeing God in nature like when I was driving.  When you're driving, you're looking at the road and you probably should be.  But if you look up at the trees, it's another whole landscape that you didn't even know was there.  It was super cool because I just started looking up.  All these trees are everywhere!  God's creation!  That’s super cool! I’m seeing God in nature.  I don't understand how people can't believe there’s a God, because this is so obviously on purpose - so intentional and beautiful.

Among the high school kids I know, there was some debate about baptism. We all really wanted to do it at Tolt McDonald because that's where we saw all of our older brothers and siblings and cousins get baptized.  For a few years, I myself have had that dream to get baptized at Tolt MacDonald.

I talked to Nathan a lot about it and talked to Liam a bit about why I wanted to get baptized.  We all kind of have the same answers because we've all grown up in the church.  It wasn't necessarily one specific thing.  It was just leading off our growing faith, an intuitive versus a rational thing.  I wanted to live with God and I wanted to have God in my heart.

It was the right time to be baptized but, in another way, the timing was amazing.  Literally, I got baptized in the river on Sunday and left early Monday morning for the Unite conference!  Somehow that was important. I wanted to be baptized before UNITE.

And UNITE was more amazing spiritual stuff!  At UNITE, the why in “why baptism” became even more apparent.  I realized that I really do want to live with God and also have God speak through me when I'm talking to other people.  I want to spread joy.

At UNITE, we talked a lot about Psalm 23.  That gave me a lot of comfort, especially these verses:

Yahweh is my shepherd I shall lack nothing he makes me lie down in green green pastures he leads me besides still waters he restores my soul he guides me in paths of righteousness for his namesake even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me.

There are aspects of the future that are uncomfortable to think about.  These verses help me know that God has a path for me, that he will guide me along it.  And when Psalm 23 says “even though I walk through shadow - the valley of the shadow of death”, it’s talking about the dark times of life.  I can tie that dark valley into having surgery on my leg, as one immediate example.  (The surgery came two weeks after UNITE.)  The dark valley can also be bad things that happen and could happen in the future.

The future is a big unknown.  It’s hard to think about what you don’t know.  I hope I will be successful in the future.  But, what if I’m not successful, and I don’t get into college or what if I don’t make enough money to support a family?  Stuff like that is uncomfortable to think about.

I’m a live-in-the-moment kind of guy.  I don’t like to look ahead unless it’s something fun or good to anticipate.  But, God has a plan and that’s a good thing.

Surgery coming up in August was not top of mind at UNITE ( that’s the live-in-the moment kind of guy!) But during the last two weeks before the surgery, I was really thinking about it and even worrying about it. Those two weeks were not my best two weeks!   I was honestly in the best condition I had been in a long time. I had been lifting weights and stuff like that.  But because I was in the best condition possible, that made me feel anxious - I'm gonna lose it with the surgery.

So, although I wasn’t really scared of the actual surgery, it was kind of a downer thinking of what I was going to lose – all that I’d worked for, lifting, walking, running – the outcome was going to be a big loss.

A thought went through my mind:  “Why do I have to be the one going through all this stuff?  Why am I the one that’s cursed to have to go through three to four surgeries on my leg?”

So, my faith has an answer for that. I know that it's not because God hates me. I know that it's not because God's mad at me. It's just stuff happens!  It even goes back to Psalm 23 in my opinion.  It's all in God’s plan. I've started to play my guitar more.  And maybe that’s because I broke my leg, so I couldn't play sports as much.  I’ve picked up the guitar again. I just know something good's gonna come out of it.  And good things have already come out of it.

Here’s one good thing as an example.

I’ve been all about baseball for several years.  It’s my main sport. But, with the surgery and recovery, I can’t play right now.  I still go to baseball practice.  Instead of playing, I help coach the team which is pretty cool.  I’m not giving up baseball, but I think the odds are I'm not gonna be able to play high school baseball this year.  Odds are I'm likely to help coach a younger team, which would be super cool.

So, Psalm 23 is my inspiration going forward. It's comforting to think that God is with me in the dark times.  I know that it's all in His plan.  And the dark times won’t go on forever.  Valleys exist, and I can go through them with God.