Why I Didn't Deliver God an Ultimatum

It's Spring semester of my junior year. I have to do my best to prepare for multiple standardized tests – taking and retaking the ACT, SAT, and SAT Subject Tests – and the more I study, the more I realize that I will never be able to cover every single subject that the tests could ever throw at me. Not in a year, and certainly not in a meager two months. A poem that I wrote on a dark day describes the situation aptly.

On the wing of a pinwheel

Breath is strangely absent.

Longing to plant my feet

Just long enough to dance.

Wind from the lungs of

(Time)

(Space)

Steals my faith

That the ground exists.

When I wrote the poem a few months back, its central meaning was nothing more or less than a complete loss of control. That meaning still applies, perhaps more so now than it ever has.

Leading up to Saturday the 12^th, the day I took the ACT for the first time, I spent a lot of time with God, pleading that He would take care of my future. That He would deliver me from all of the uncertainty and heartache that goes along with testing and the process of college application. It was rather like Jesus' prayer before He went to the cross, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)

Well, we all know what happened to Jesus – a few days later, He went on to die the most horrible death that the human psyche has ever devised – death on the cross. But his suffering brought so much restoration that his Church continues to celebrate the event over 2000 years later.

God chose not to grant my request. He chose not to take all of the uncertainties out of my life for the present – quite the contrary.

Just the other day I found out that my composite score for the ACT is a 31. While that's a pretty good score, it might not be good enough to get me into any of my top prospective colleges.

The next morning, I got an email from a non-profit organization called Quest Bridge. I had applied for their College Prep Scholarship late last month, hoping to earn some financial aid toward a summer program at Stanford University. If I had been able to attend the program and get good grades in all of my classes, then I would have had an ace to put on my application next year. But Quest Bridge turned me away.

In other words, this past week has been a crucible for me. All of my ideas about how this semester should have gone vanished in the space of two days. And I eventually began to reflect on the last half of the prayer that I prayed, following in Jesus' footsteps, “yet not my will, but yours be done.”

I refuse to believe that God has just deserted me. I know that if He allowed my life to be out of control for a season, then He had a reason for doing so.

As I stare deeply into my own heart as a result of this failure, asking myself how I got where I am and what I'm going to do about it, I realize that I am growing as a human being. I am beginning to root out some of the pride and the sin that has been festering in my soul for years as I laid everything else aside to pursue my own selfish goals for the future. God is using this trial to bring restoration to my relationship with Him.

I have one last thought for you. That is, that I could have prayed my prayer a different way. I could have told God, “Hey, look, I'll cut you a deal. If you give me a really, really good score on this test, then I'll take it as a sign that I'm going to get into my favorite college and I'll praise you and I won't worry about it any more. And if you give me an average or a bad score, I'll take it as a sign that you don't want me to go to college at all. I'll drop everything. As soon as I'm done with high school I'll join YWAM and become a missionary, and then I won't have to worry about any of this crazy college stuff any more, and I know that I'm doing your will because, hey, we have a deal!”

In other words, I could have put God in a box, eliminated all uncertainties myself, and grasped for the reigns of my own life again. But our God is so much bigger than that. He plans to put me through a long, hard season of complete trust in Him. He plans to restore my soul, and to draw me closer to his heart. His plans are not my plans – halleluiah!