I got this FB post from my daughter’s Sunday School teacher recently:

Sunday School today...Me: "So do you think God already knows your future? What you will do, where you will live, what you will look like?" Allie: "God told me already, He said when I grow up I will look just like Elsa!"

God most certainly does know what our future holds but in large part He’s not telling.

I wondered a similar question a while back as well. I put a post on FB asking these questions:

What did you want to be when you grew up? Are you doing that now?

Now, besides my post asking about young ladies wearing bikinis, these questions received the most responses of any I have posted. Here are some answers:

Nurse, teacher, archeologist, museum curator, actress, journalist. Just about everything except a mother and most certainly not to two scrappy little boys. Life and its plot twists.

Well, I wanted to have 10 kids, be divorced and live with my mom! Thank you Jesus for realizing my dreams were a bit off. I got my awesome life of three kids and married to my best friend for 29 years. And my mom lives in Florida.

When I was involved in a car accident at the age of 12 I had nurses who took wonderful care of me. From then on I wanted to be a nurse, which I did. I have never regretted that and love taking care of people to this day. Now I'm a case manager which let's me take care of them emotionally. Love my job!!

I wanted to be amazingly awesome....so you know...check that off the list... (never wanted to be humble though).

Kelly Mintner didn’t quite know what her future held either.

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I received an uncorrected proof of Wherever The River Runs, written by Kelly Mintner, for the purpose of generating a review. The italicized quotes below are from the book. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Kelly thought she’d play college basketball until her scholarship fell through. She turned to music, moving to Nashville and releasing a CD. In the midst of chasing this dream, Kelly met a book publisher. Through this encounter, she eventually met up with folks at LifeWay and started writing Bible studies. 

But God wasn’t done. He moved her beyond authoring studies for ladies like me and my Wednesday night crew. God introduced her to the folks at Justice and Mercy International (JMI). They took her on not just one, but several trips to the Amazon jungle. 

That part of her journey brought us this book. A reminder that “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (ESV)

Here are some exerpts from the book about her trip out of her comfort zone:

I bowed my head not realizing at the time that I’d never prayed for God to provide someone with a house before.

What part of the Bible would I turn to if one of the women told me her child was sick and she didn’t have money for a doctor? If she told me her husband was drinking and abusive? Would I begin my devotional by talking about my life?

Reading Scripture without layers of entertainment makes you listen harder to what’s actually on the page. And in the absence of a band blaring through a speaker, I could actually hear the children’s voices, out of tune and out of time, and it was glory.

That small ministry in Brazil whose mission had been projected onto a screen a world away was about to captivate me, blow the lid off my tightly sealed Western-theology pot, and forever shape the way I spend money, value prayer, consider the poor, view modern-day miracles, and feel about acai berries.

God still works in Kelly’s life. This Amazon jungle gig with JMI is far from over. He still works in your life too, you know. And mine. This book, treasure that it was, encourages us to live full on in the life Jesus has for us. Wherever that might take us. 

You can’t always tell where you’re going, but eventually you find Him to be what He has been all along; faithful.