"What next?" or "What now?"

Okay, I'm going to just be very open and throw my sin out there... I am a worrier.  And not just the kind of worry over huge things or the mild-fret kind of worry, but a full-blown, control-freak, big-time sin kind of worry.  Given the past year of my life, you would think that I would have learned a lesson or two by now, but apparently I'm a slow learner because here lately worry has once again taken a firm grip on my heart.  Now granted, worry has disguised itself... I give it names like "considering" and "contemplating" and "wondering".  But I made a discovery today- when I get serious and really take it to the Lord, He reveals it for what it is.

We all know we face an unknown future (Ecclesiastes 9:12... "Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come...").  Yet for some reason the unknown has been plaguing me.  I've been driving myself (and anyone close to me) crazy with wanting to know what lies ahead for our family.  I want to know what Harper's future will look like, I want to know what God has in store for my daughters' education, I want to know what plans He has for our careers, and I want to know what He is preparing us for, because I feel that He has done some serious pruning in our lives over the past year or so.  I want to know! 

But I'm not supposed to know, at least not right now.  I've been obsessing over wanting to know more than I need to know.  It's okay to seek Him out and to seek His will, but sometimes we have to accept that what He has revealed right now is all that we need for the time being.  He wants us to desire more of Him, to desire wisdom and discernment, but we are not going to be omniscient.  Only He is all-knowing.  In my seeking and searching, I have been striving to know it all, but He knows exactly what I can handle knowing in this moment.  I need to rest in knowing that He knows all, and I know Him, and that's enough.

So, I'm trying a different approach.  Instead of constantly looking forward and asking, "What next?" I am going to strive to look around and ask, "What now?"  Yes, I still like to plan ahead and be as prepared as I can be, but instead of focusing on an unknown future, I need to focus on the moment and place that I'm in.  What is He calling me to do in this moment, in this place?  How can I serve here and now?  Am I being the influence I need to be right now on the people surrounding me, or am I always looking for something else, someone else, somewhere else?  I don't want to miss the opportunities that He's given me now because I'm so worried about what is to come, on the "what next."  He'll tell me "what next" when I need to know.  In the meantime, my question needs to be, "What now?"