God definitely has good things for our futures. I cannot deny His promise. However, He also told us that we will have trouble in this world, but the greater promise is that He has overcome the world. In Proverbs it says "the horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord." You will face difficulty; I'm not going to lie and tell you that while God knows His plans for you and they are for your good that you won't encounter pain. I do not desire it upon anyone; pain sucks. However, the greatest reality in life is that there has always been one Constant in your life today and forevermore: God. He "will never leave you nor forsake you." He walks with you "holding your right hand." In my experience, I have been in the Refiners fire since I graduated, and there has been pain and struggle. Was I ever alone? Never. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the "heart is deceitful above all else and beyond cure, who can understand it?" My emotions, what I felt may have told me that I was alone during those tribulations, but the truth--what God says--is that He has been with me, even before I was following Him.
Take risks. Don't be afraid to fail. If you do, there is One who is beside you, behind and before you. The struggle is real, but your Savior is greater. He will not let you be burned by the fire, nor be overtaken by the waters. Run, graduate, the race God has set before you, and do is all with your best as unto Christ. Remember: "Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him--as Lord, King, Savior--and He will make your paths straight." The greatest thing I can tell you is that you don't have what it takes, because you don't have to. If all you do is struggle to please your Savior, you've been misled, because you are fully pleasing to Him already. There is a limited amount of time set before you, God has granted you with amazing gifts and has set before you a path to walk. Hold fast to Him, because HE HAS WHAT IT TAKES. (I don't say any of this to make you not do what God has set before you with all your heart. Don't find the strength within yourself; find it in your Heavenly Father.) Philippians 3:7-14 "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in the view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one things I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
