The year of maybe not getting everything I want, but definitely getting everything I need.

I found a picture with these words quoted:

and it helped me to realise what 2012 should be about. My whole life, up to now, I almost always got everything I wanted, but not always what I needed. I am at a point in my life where I am beginning to understand a lot of things, but the more I understand, the more I feel like nothing makes any sense. I feel like the more I learn, the less I know. I believe the reason why I feel this way is because I am learning from the wrong sources...

Institutions like Schools, Universities, Work-places and even Churches are filled with a lot of very smart and successful people that know and understand a lot of things. These people are able to teach you numerous things if you are willing to work hard and learn from them. They will give you huge textbooks filled with huge amounts of useful information, fascinating statistics and graphs, amazing sciences, mind boggling philosophies, loads of historical facts etc. They will make you work hard to learn things through practical experience.

You can work as hard as you like and learn as much as you want, but one thing is certain: Knowledge does not give you certainty about this life or this world that we live in. I think the more knowledge you obtain, the more uncertainty you invite into your life, or at least, that is how I experience it? That is probably why people say: “Ignorance is bliss”.

I studied at the University of Pretoria and I now finally have a BSc: Zoology degree. Now that I have a degree in science, I do not feel smart and educated and ready to step out into the big world to take on life, at all. I feel the exact opposite of that. I feel more confused and scared than the first day I walked into University.

I am not saying that I didn’t learn anything. I learned many things! Not only from the classes I took and the books I studied, but also from the Professors and lecturers that taught me and the stories that they told about their lives and what they have learned and experienced. I also learned from my own life experiences in these three years. There were good times and bad times and I had to overcome some obstacles and I experienced failure as well as success. But with all that I have learned, there is one very important thing that I learned and this one thing is:

I have learned too much from people, about people and what they think and made and understand (or what they think they understand), and
I have learned too little from God, about God and what He thinks and knows, understands and made.

So I have a lot of knowledge and a little bit of wisdom, but I have no idea what to do with it? This, to me, sounds like a recipe for disaster!

For this reason I am now turning to the Creator of it all to learn from Him. He made everything and understands everything, so I know that He will teach me what I need to know... and the Bible says that which I need to know is JESUS CHRIST. I am ready to learn from God about everything that He made and everything that He knows and thinks and understands and loves and hates.

I am ready to leave all the textbooks behind and all the security and rules made by society and this world. I am ready to step out in faith to follow Jesus to wherever He may lead me so that I may learn what He wants to teach me. I am so thankful that God is giving me the opportunity to go on a Global Challenge Expedition, so that I can get to know Him better and that I may learn His will and plan for this world and how I am supposed to fit my life into His plan.

Romans 5:3-5

New International Version (NIV)

³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

New International Version (NIV)

 ⁷ “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,    whose confidence is in him. ⁸ They will be like a tree planted by the water    that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes;    its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought    and never fails to bear fruit.”