Relinquishing the Future: Trusting the Providence of God / Guest Post by Luke Anderson

Have you ever looked back on your life and wondered how you ended up where you are today?

When we look ahead, we often want a clear picture of what our lives will look like. We want to know where we will end up, what opportunities to pursue, and how today's decisions will affect our future. We make plans and try to figure out the best path forward. Yet life rarely unfolds exactly as we expect.
 
This past spring, as I finished my junior year of college, I thought I had the next chapter of my life planned out. I was going to graduate the following spring with a degree in exercise science, attend graduate school, and get married—all within twelve months. As a college senior, I felt like planning for adulthood couldn't be that hard.

However, over the next couple of months, God began to change my perspective in drastic ways. The relationship I expected to lead to marriage ended, and I quickly realized how much of my identity had become centered on it. Without that relationship, I found myself reevaluating nearly everything about my future. What did I want to do for a career? Did I even want to pursue exercise science? Was graduate school still the right path? What about ministry?
 
Questions about the future consumed my thoughts. I wanted answers, direction, and certainty about where my life was headed. When I couldn't understand what God was doing or what He had planned for me, I returned to a phrase my mother repeated day after day throughout that summer. Eventually, it became my mantra: “Do the next right thing.”

Soon after, I heard a sermon by one of my favorite pastors, Craig Groeschel of Life.Church, on the book of Esther. To be honest, my only exposure to Esther's story had come from watching VeggieTales as a kid. I had never taken the time to read the book for myself, but hearing the story profoundly challenged how I thought about God's providence.
 
Esther was a Jewish woman living in the Persian Empire during her people's exile. Through God's providence, she became queen and was eventually positioned to help save her people from a plot to destroy them. What struck me was that Esther became queen years before this threat emerged. She could not have known how the circumstances of her life would eventually come together to serve a greater purpose.

Remarkably, Esther is the only book in the Bible where God's name is never explicitly mentioned, yet His hand is evident throughout the story. The timing of events and seemingly ordinary circumstances play a role in delivering God's people. Even when the purpose wasn't immediately apparent, God was at work.
 
I imagine Esther could have wondered what would come next or what God was doing through her life. In many ways, those were the same questions I asked that summer. I wanted to know where my life was headed, but perhaps I was so focused on figuring out the future that I was missing the responsibilities I already had in the present. 

Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” This verse challenged me to consider the tension between planning responsibly for the future and surrendering my need to control it. Being still doesn't mean becoming passive or refusing to make decisions. It means recognizing that God is God, and I am not. I can make plans and take action without needing to know how every detail will unfold.

This summer, I was learning to relinquish the future I had imagined and trust the God who already knew what lay ahead. One of the hardest parts of waiting is resisting the urge to fill the space ourselves. We replay decisions, weigh possible outcomes, and search for signs that we're heading in the right direction. I found myself doing exactly that. I was so eager to rush out of the waiting room that I wanted to pick the next door I saw and slam it open myself.

But God wasn't asking me to figure out the next five years; He was asking me to be faithful today.

That is what I have come to appreciate about my mother's advice to “do the next right thing.” It doesn't mean ignoring the future. It means taking responsibility for what's in front of me without carrying the burden of knowing how everything will turn out.

First, be faithful with what God has placed in front of you. We can become so focused on the next season of life that we neglect the one we're currently in. We wonder what job we'll have, where we'll live, or what our relationships will look like, while missing opportunities to serve and grow right where we are. For me, that meant guiding a small group on my team, finishing my senior year strong academically, and striving to be the best person and player I could be, both on and off the ice. Returning to school in the fall helped me realize I still had meaningful work in front of me. Esther couldn't see the entire story of her life, but when the moment came to act, she had a responsibility to respond faithfully. We may not know what God has planned, but we can be faithful students, employees, teammates, friends, and servants of Christ today.

Second, learn to trust God's character when you cannot understand His plans. The book of Esther reminds us that God's work isn't always obvious in the moment. Sometimes we recognize His providence only after the fact; other times, we may never fully understand why certain things happened. Faith doesn't require us to pretend disappointment doesn't hurt or that every circumstance makes sense. Instead, we can trust that God's character remains unchanged, even when our circumstances do. Lamentations 3:22–23 reminds us that His mercies never end; they are new every morning. We may not know what tomorrow holds, but we can trust the faithfulness of the One who holds it.

Finally, surrender the outcome while continuing to take the next step. Trusting God's providence isn't an excuse to sit back and wait for life to happen. We should pray, seek wisdom from Scripture and godly counsel, and make thoughtful decisions. But we must also recognize the limits of our control. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” We can make plans without demanding that our lives unfold as we planned.

I'm still learning these lessons. In many ways, I'm still in the waiting room with God. I don't have every answer about my future, and I can't tell you exactly where the next few years will lead. But that is precisely what God is teaching me: my peace cannot depend on having every detail figured out. Matthew 10:39 reminds me that Jesus calls us to surrender our lives for His sake: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” My identity cannot rest on a particular relationship, career, or destination, and my faithfulness cannot be measured by how much I control or understand God's plan.

I think back to Esther and how God worked through circumstances that may have seemed ordinary or insignificant at the time. I also think about the words my mother repeated throughout the summer: “Do the next right thing.”

Maybe you're in a similar season. Maybe a relationship has ended, a career path has changed, or the future you once felt certain about is now unclear. You don't have to have the next five years mapped out to take the next faithful step. In fact, James 1:2 calls us to “count it all joy” when we face trials, not because the circumstances themselves are easy, but because God can use them to grow our faith. These seasons give us opportunities to put our faith into practice and learn to trust Him regardless of our circumstances. As Proverbs 3:5–6 reminds us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

Make your plans. Seek the Lord. Be faithful with what He has placed before you. Even when you cannot see the whole picture, you can still walk forward in faith.

You may not know what comes next, but you can do the next right thing.