"Go, go where you are, anchor your roots underneath; doubt your own doubts, and believe your beliefs."

You have a responsibility to be wherever you're at. It is sin to wish you were somewhere else. Let me tell you something Stuart Scott said to our Methods of Biblical Change class freshman year: when you fantasize and daydream about how your life can be better, you are questioning God's sovereignty, purpose, and goodness in your life; and you are trying to be God in your own little twisted way by setting up your own ideal world in which YOU are sovereign, not God. It's just plain sin.

Sounds harsh, huh? You don't like to hear that your daydreams and fantasies of how life could be so much better if only this or that would happen are sin, right?

But think about it. It's biblical. We are called to be content in all things, like Paul; whether in a prison cell or under house arrest or being stoned and shunned and shipwrecked and slandered all while carrying the Gospel to a lost world.

If you asked me what one text has radically and primarily shaped my thinking, I will truthfully tell you the Word of God. But, that's not to say that certain other things I've picked up along the way haven't stuck with me.

The first quote I'm about to tell you will fully remove any doubt in your mind of what a giant nerd I am. It's from Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring-- the movie, not the book. Although, I have read the book (actually all the books, and actually I've read them multiple times each), I like the way the movie conveys this specific scene better. The fellowship is trying to make its way through the dark and abandoned caves of the Dwarf city of Moria (which always reminds me of the Mountain in which Abraham was sent to sacrifice Isaac in Gen. 22-- Moriah) and Gandalf has paused to try and figure out which way to take. He is sitting next to Frodo and they are discussing the burden of carrying the One Ring and all the trouble that has come and will come with the quest. Frodo says, "I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish that any of this had never happened." Gandalf kindly and wisely replies, "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not theirs to decide. All you must do is decide what to do with the time given you."

The next quote is a proverb held among the puritans that I recite to myself on a near-daily basis: "See to your duties, and let God handle the rest."


You have a responsibility to see to your duties, to decide what to do with the time given you, to be where you are 100%. To do any less is to waste what you've been given, to be faithless, to dishonor your Creator. He's given you this life; He's totally constructed the circumstances you're in right now-- glorify Him with your life. Whether you're in mourning, or you're stressed, or you're stoked, or you're hurting, or you're thrilled, or whatever, glorify God where you're at.