to plan or not to plan?

Lately I have been going super crazy with planning stuff out. Planning for when I study abroad, planning for when I graduate, planning my entire weekmonthyear with lunches and study dates and volunteering and budgeting my time ever so carefully so as to get everything done. It finally hit me the other day that maybe, just maybe, I've been planning too much. I was at a meeting about a volunteering opportunity for next semester - working at an after school tutoring program with 4th graders at one of the nation's worst public elementary schools. I strongly believe that a stronger education system would start solving many social justice issues in our country like poverty, obesity, homelessness, and sexual violence. I realized, though, that I couldn't volunteer because of my class load - I signed up for 18 credits next semester so that when I study abroad next year, I will only have to take 12 credits.

How crazy is that?! Am I so crazy that I would give up doing something I'm passionate about, something that would work to build the Lord's Kingdom, just so that maybe in the future my workload would be easier? And that's IF I get the opportunity to study abroad. How horrible would I feel a year from now I'm bored with so little class work, or even if I don't get to study abroad at all? Pretty stinkin bad. We can't wander through our lives with no direction or purpose, but when our planning starts to affect our lives today, I feel that we aren't being glorifying.

This convicts me every time I read it: "Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil" Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." 

-James 4:13-17

So, in case you didn't guess, I've decided to drop a class for next semester! Not only because I don't need to take it, but because it's keeping me from living fully for God today. And that, I woud say, is the most important thing :)

P.S. - I've decided to start posting a picture or two along with my blog to sum up my day! It will probably have nothing to do with the blog, but maybe sometimes they'll be pretty or interesting.

This picture might seem similar to my last post... it is! I have three finals tomorrow, and these notebooks and books have been my good friends this weekend. Wish me luck!