In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determined his steps (Proverbs 16:9).

I don't know if there's ever been a period in my life in which I could have accurately predicted my position in life, five years into the future.  When I was 18 years old, I might have guessed that I'd be married within the next 5 years -- though even at that, I really had no concept of what that would actually feel like -- and my career predictions would have centered around television, video, advertising, or something like that.  Certainly not college ministry.  When I was 23, I might have imagined that my future might have included involvement in church leadership and maybe even starting a new church somewhere else within North America, but I would have never considered the remotest possibility that I would be moving to Europe and helping to start such a new church in the middle of Amsterdam!  When I was 28, the possibility may have crossed my mind that I'd still be living in the Netherlands, serving as the pastor for a developing church community -- though I would not have ranked that as a very high probability -- and yet, here I am, still living in Amsterdam, now as "the pastor" for Amsterdam50.  These days, at age 33, I could give you vague guesses as to where I might be and what I might be doing five years from now -- but I've learned along the way that it can be just plain silly to try and map out the course of my life with any degree of accuracy.  I've simply discovered, as it repeatedly mentions in the 16th chapter of the Proverbs (verses 1, 2, 3, 9, 20, 25, and 33), that the LORD determines a man's steps, not the man himself.

Even so, it seems that God uses whatever circumstances might be in our lives at any given moment to prepare us and develop us for the course He's marked out for us.  My concepts of love, marriage, communications, and career development were immature and incomplete at age 18 -- but even so, God prepared me for the true course of my life through my decision to study at Bowling Green State University, where I could develop my relationship with the woman who would eventually become my wife, where I could develop a deeper understanding of my faith and build deep friendships that could influence me for years to come.  In my early 20s, the idea of moving to a different continent was pretty far-fetched -- not really on my radar screen at all -- still, God prepared me for the true course of my life through a job role with Great Commission Ministries that allowed me to both gain experience "making disciples" among college students in northwest Ohio AND travel the world (and specifically Europe) with a video camera, making promotional videos for the organization's international headquarters -- providing me with a unique palette of experiences that would later serve me greatly in moving to make disciples in Amsterdam.  By my late 20s, I still had half-baked ideas about what it meant to really serve as a pastor and a leader -- and I was still far too easily influenced by my circumstances and emotions to think that I could ever have the longevity to be recognized as and serve as the pastor for our church in Amsterdam for years into the future.  Even so, God prepared me for the true course of my life through putting people around me who could shape my character and sharpen my ministry skills to the point where I could serve comfortably and confidently (most of the time!) for our church in Amsterdam.  These days, it's hard to say how my current life circumstances could be used to prepare me for what God has next... But I've become confident of the fact that the Lord will indeed determine my steps.

Until the future makes itself manifest, I can still go about making plans as best I can; God may even use these tentative plans to prepare me in some way.  But ultimately, at the end of the day, it's all up to God how things will play out.  Parts of me may resist this or resent this -- but I've also learned along the way that God's ways really are the best ways.