Dear 25-year-old Robbie,
You’re going to be fine. Not because you’ve got this figured out (you don’t), and not because the plan is going to work out the way you’ve drawn it up. You’re going to be fine because the God you’re chasing was never waiting for you to arrive somewhere before He showed up.
I know that’s not the sermon you want. You want the one where the hustle pays off, the faithfulness gets rewarded on a predictable schedule, and the exhaustion turns out to have been worth it. I don’t have that sermon. I never found one that held up. But here’s what I’d actually tell you, twenty-five years later, if you’d sit still long enough to listen.
If I’m honest about anything, it’s this: you’re a chaser. You always have been. You’ll chase the next platform, the next win, the next version of yourself that finally feels like enough. Some of that chasing will look like ambition. Some of it will look like calling. Most of the time you won’t be able to tell the difference, and neither will anyone watching you.
Ambition and calling aren’t the same thing
You’re going to spend a decade confusing the two. Bigger platform will feel like more faithfulness. It isn’t. Some of the most faithful things you’ll ever do will happen in rooms nobody’s watching, and some of the biggest stages you stand on will do nothing for your soul.
Here’s the part you won’t want to hear: the chasing doesn’t stop because you finally catch something. It stops when you stop needing to.
The burnout won’t look like collapse
You’re picturing burnout as some dramatic breaking point. It’s not. It’s quieter than that. It’s going numb to things that used to wreck you in the best way. It’s showing up Sunday and going through the motions of caring. And for a chaser like you, it sneaks up because you’ll mistake the exhaustion for evidence you’re finally doing something right.
There’s a scene in 1 Kings 19 you’ll come back to more than almost any other passage. Elijah’s just had the biggest spiritual win of his life on Mount Carmel, and one chapter later he’s under a broom tree asking God to let him die. God’s response isn’t a pep talk. It’s food, sleep, more food, and then, finally, a conversation. Before God asks Elijah a single question about his calling, He deals with his body.
You’ll wear tired like a badge for years before you figure out that’s backwards. Rest isn’t what you earn after the work is done. Michael Yaconelli says it better than I can:
“Rest is a decision we make. Rest is choosing to do nothing when we have too much to do, slowing down when we feel pressure to go faster, stopping instead of starting.”
Read that book (Messy Spirituality) sooner than you’re going to. It’ll save you some years.
You don’t owe anyone your certainty
You’re going to spend your twenties trying to have answers for everyone. Someone’s marriage is falling apart, someone’s kid walked away from faith, someone’s parent just died without knowing Jesus, and you’re going to reach for a verse or a phrase that makes it feel resolved. Stop. You’ll spend your thirties learning that “I don’t know” is sometimes the most honest sermon you preach.
The guy in Mark 9 who says “I believe; help my unbelief” isn’t rebuked for the doubt part. Jesus meets him right there, mid-sentence, holding both things at once. You’re allowed to do that too. The people in front of you aren’t looking for someone with no questions. They’re looking for someone honest enough to admit he has them.
Who you are isn’t up for a vote
You’re going to tie your worth to how Sunday went. The energy in the room, the compliments after service, the sense that it landed. That’s going to cost you more than you think, because it means your identity resets every seven days based on a crowd’s reaction.
Paul writes about a thorn he begged God to remove, and the answer wasn’t removal, it was “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). You’re not going to feel strong most weeks. That was never the qualification. Yaconelli again:
“Spirituality isn’t about being finished and perfect; spirituality is about trusting God in our unfinishedness.”
Let that be true of you before you’ve earned the right to believe it.
One more thing
You’re going to think the goal is to arrive somewhere: more settled, more sure, more finished. It’s not. You’re going to chase that feeling for a long time before you realize it doesn’t exist, and that the chasing itself was never the problem. It’s what you were chasing. Twenty-five years from now you’ll still be unfinished, and it’ll turn out that was the point the whole time.
You’ll spend your twenties trying to have answers for everyone. You’ll spend your thirties learning that “I don’t know” is sometimes the most honest sermon you preach.
Start there. It’ll save you a lot of time.