Don't put all your eggs in one basket, or maybe you should.

I'm sure most of us have heard the phrase "Don't put all your eggs in one basket", and in fact I knew generally what this meant but had never heard an official definition. So I decided to look up what exactly that phrase meant. Dictionary.com defines that phrase as "Don't concentrate all your prospects or resources in one thing or place, or you could lose everything." Well to be honest this was a much stronger definition than I thought. The idea that if you put too much of your resources into something you could literally lose everything.

But what about Faith.

What if God calls you to do something, should we continue to plan for our "plan B"? I am not advocating that we should never have a backup plan or that we should never plan things. However I am saying that I don't think faith needs a backup plan. When God really calls us to do something, he wants us to be all in. Not just our time, not just our money, not just our relationships, but all of it and more. God is asking us if we will put all of our hard earned eggs into his basket. Once the eggs leave our hands the what ifs start coming up. What if everything I am investing in is taken and I lose everything?

I guess my thought is how can we lose everything when we believe that God is our everything and since we can't lose him we can never lose everything (sorry some of my logical reasoning from studying for the LSAT is coming into my thinking lately).
Deuteronomy 31: 6 says "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

Faith is a pretty scary thing, trust me I get that. Faith means that you are putting every single egg you have into Gods basket, his plan, and there is no way to know for sure... but God does promise that everything he does is to better us and not harm us. When I felt like God called me to law school I had no idea why he would do that, or how it would happen. Does he know how many loans I already have? Does he know that I am less qualified than almost any other applicant? Does he know how much it costs just to apply, let alone how much law school is? God why would you call me to something that bleeds me dry? The only answer I have to offer is faith. I have always trusted God and he has never let me down. All I can do is keep giving him my eggs.

Some people think I am crazy and ask me what I will do when this "law school thing" doesn't work out, they want to know what my plan B is. The truth is I don't have one. If for some reason Gods plan changes and I don't go, then I trust he will provide me with a different opportunity. All God asks of me right now is to do my best and put everything into what I think would please him. So I am. I am studying almost every day for a test that is in two more months. I am buying all the materials I need to succeed because faith doesn't mean I just sit around and wait for God to accept me into my dream school, it requires work.  Faith is work. Putting all my eggs in one basket is hard! Trusting God when you can't see the end game is so hard, but so rewarding. I am thankful to have grown up watching my parents not have a plan B. They recently moved to New Zealand because God asked them to. Yes, it was scary and yes they worried about what if it didn't work. But, they still kept putting all their eggs in the basket God had given them. They didn't save one car "just in case" they come back early. They didn't keep the house "just in case". They gave it all to God and I was able to see how God provided for them in ways that their plan B could have never done.

I don't have all the answers about when is it okay to have a backup plan and when is it okay to just have faith. The truth is, God will tell you if you ask him. Faith is not one size fits all. Faith is available in all shapes and sizes, but it looks different for everyone. For me I had to make a commitment and start focusing all I have on this new path. For my family it was letting go of everything that was familiar and safe for the unknown. Putting all your eggs in one basket is never easy, but faith reminds us that we can never truly lose everything, only gain more of a trust in God.

Piece of a Puzzle

Everyone does puzzles a little bit differently; some people find all the outer pieces and work their way in, some work on specific colors or shapes, and some that are like me just jab at all the pieces until something fits. The really intense puzzle people don't even look at the box, they just know exactly how everything should fit, in case you were wondering I am not one of those people.

I'm sure many of us have heard analogies about life and puzzle pieces, but bear with me. Imagine that your whole life is a bunch of puzzle pieces. Each year/ moment/ event is a piece. Except we can't see the box...or most of the pieces.

Honestly, I have no idea where I will be in the next five years, or even the next five days. But I continue to try and put the pieces together myself. I know God is powerful and has a plan for my life, but I still try and put the puzzle of my life together. Sometimes I will look up to God (who has the box and knows what all the pieces are) and ask if these two pieces go together, then before he has a chance to respond I start jabbing away trying to make it fit. Once I break off a few of the unnecessary edges I proudly say that they definitely do fit together! Until much later when I realized that the original piece was supposed to fit somewhere else in my life.

I tend to see other people who have their lives together and I wonder why can't my puzzle look like that, and then I might even start trying to fit my pieces together to look like theirs. Sometimes I will see someone who also has a mind like mine and they are doing amazing things to help people all over the world, so I start trying to use my strength in the same way that they do...but it won't fit. We can't base our puzzle on the pieces that other people have put together.

The more I try to put my life pieces together the more I get confused. I ask God how does law school fit into the puzzle? What about the husband piece? What piece has my future city on it? What about the finance piece? I keeping looking for the pieces myself, when God is patiently waiting for me to hand him one to use.

At the end of our lives we will finally see every piece come together, but we can't right now no matter how hard we try. Lately I just keep feeling like God is asking me to give him the pieces of my puzzle one at a time and he will put them together. Okay God, you want my future location here take it, you want my time it's yours, God you can have all of my pieces because I literally have no idea what to do with them. I am so thankful to have a just and loving God to put my life together. I know that I am not giving things up just for fun, but that I will have so much more joy and peace once I am not spending so much time putting the pieces together myself.

God has already begun to show me how he has put pieces together over the course of my life and seeing what he has done in the past encourages me to keep trusting that everything will be put together according to his perfect plan.

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you" declares the Lord, "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Stop trying to jab the pieces together and just hand off one piece at a time. God will create a beautiful masterpiece even better than what we can dream of ourselves.