you don’t need to know.

“I’ve never done this before,” is my new theme song.

It’s pretty catchy, actually.

I road-tripped to Chicago for the first time. I am renting an apartment for the first time. Meaning I am also shopping for groceries and sharing a fridge with four other girls for the first time. I started classes as a junior in college for the first time. I got a package of checkbooks in the mail for the first time, but I still have yet to sign one for the first time.

And perhaps for the first time in my life I have been so scattered-brained I can barely remember what day of the week it is. I am a planner person, an organized person, an I-really-need-to-know-what’s-ahead kinda person. But lately, I’ve been forgetting what to even put on my to-do list.

When my friends and I drove down to Chicago, we had never seen those roads before. We had never physically seen Chicago either.

But we trusted it was out there. We believed there would be sparkling, steel skyscrapers and we believed that Lake Michigan would be a shocking, crystal blue. We even believed there would be a massive silver bean in the middle of the city, just waiting for us to wave at our reflections. So we did what any logical person would do: drive 80 miles-per-hour in a direction we had never gone to a place we had never been.

I wish I could say I was completely carefree during that drive—letting the sunroof breeze blow my worries away, but I didn’t. My eyes glared at the never-ending Illinois road and my hands choked the steering wheel nearly half to death. Every 30 minutes I double checked that we were on the right road and I triple checked every exit.

When you do things for the first time, you feel out of control. There are so many unknowns, so many questions. You kinda feel like a kid again.

But the more I think about it, the more I think maybe that’s how God wants us to live—like we’re on the greatest road-trip of our life.

He wants us to ask questions and have some doubts so we realize that He is all knowing and powerful; we do not need to know all the answers.

He wants us to follow him and read his word so we learn to trust in His road map; we do not need to drive the whole way.

He wants us to feel like a kid and get a little lost, so we remember that He is our loving Father; we are not orphans running away from home.

After all, everyone is trying out this thing called life for the first time. Who are we to say we know the directions?

One of my roommates, Emily, was playing guitar as I was washing the dishes for the first time in our apartment. She started singing, Let It Be by The Beatles. The lyrics touched me so sweetly in that moment.

“There will be an answer, let it be.”

We try so hard to find the answers, don’t we? We want to know why things happen, what God’s plan is, and who we are, but if we tried to find all the answers before going forward we would never move.

We would never go on roadtrips. 

There is a beautiful purpose for you. Maybe you can’t see the skyline of it yet, but I believe the only way you will is by going 80 miles-per-hour on a road you’ve never been.

Just remember that God knows these roads like he knows the beat of your heart. Trust that He is taking you down a road that will make your heart beat even faster.

You don’t need to know all the details. All you need to know is that with God in the driver’s seat, you will never be late and the final destination will never disappoint.

And from personal experience, it’s going to be way more impressive than a giant bean.

Enjoy the ride,

Molly

“The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope.” Colossians 1:5 (MSG)

“I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?” C.S. Lewis