| | My semester is coming to a close. I've grown weary of the essays. I'm tired of argument and opinion; politics and editorials. There's a lot of relief in the Christmas lights. Simple joy can rip stress off easily. I haven't been super busy. I've had a very laid back semester, to match my personality.
I've had a lot of good times so far, and I'm very excited about the next three and a half years, and excited still about what may come after that. In other words, I'm excited about the rest of college, and I'm excited about living in a box. I'm going to study something I love and want to study: English. I don't know where that will take me. My future is, indeed, uncertain. I wanted to make that sacrifice, though. I will give up certain success and achievement to do something I love. Perhaps that is what I have truly been studying these past few months: the art of sacrifice for love.
Yeah, I mean Christ. I'm talking as a student and as a Christian. I'm speaking as a person who realizes that classes need to be pushed aside, studying needs to be put aside, even my love for English and literature needs to put aside if that's what it takes to truly seek after Christ. The experience of being a student and being a Christian will continually get more interesting, and I think that is the only certainty in my future.
Growing up (which, I guess, I'm still doing), I've watched people go off to college. There's not been a single one of them, who stuck with, it that didn't change. You expect it. People change, for better or for worse, when they make it to higher education. I had a friend, when I asked if he'd go do something with me, my girlfriend of the time, and one of her friends, tell me, "Clay, there's a line that a girl crosses when she gets to college. Once you see that, you don't want to be with one on the other side of the line." That was his unique way of telling me no, and it's a word of advice that has stuck with me ever since.
So I've crossed the line, and I like it over here. I grew up in a household where an education was, basically, expected. Both of my parents have college degrees, and a little further; one who is a certified nurse, and the other a seminary graduate. I found myself being a creative soul as I got older. I could have chosen to try and run with that, I suppose. Me and my bass guitar could have hit the streets of Oneida ready to rock the world. To some people, that is a logical path to choose, and it has worked out. I'm not one of them, though. I always knew I would be going to college.
Now that I'm here, that knowledge makes sense. I can't think of any one time in my life when I have said that God put me somewhere, or that God told me to make some decision. I'm not sure I want to say that now. It doesn't seem like God put me here, and I still haven't heard God tell me to do anything; it seems like God made me to be at this place. There wasn't any "No no no, Clay, you can't stay there. I, God, am picking up and placing you at the University of Kentucky. I'm God. I can do that, and you'll like it." I think that would have been kind of fun to hear, but I didn't hear it. I decided to come here. Other than growing up and kind of being sick of the Church of Kentucky Basketball, I felt no opposition to being here. It used to be the last place I would have chosen, but here I am and I couldn't feel more comfortable. So no, God didn't have a one-on-one and tell me what to do, and God didn't pick me up and throw me two hours down the road, God made me as a person who would be on UK's campus. Can you dig it?
I feel that is one of the most important things about being a Christian going off to college: that feeling, that comfort, that ease that comes with going where you were created to be, at least for part of your life. I encourage any reader to apply this to whatever they might be doing with their life or wherever they may be in this world. I don't know if a "calling" is an actual calling of sorts or not, but I believe God created us as different people, and we have different places to be so that we bring Him glory. You can call that calling if you want. I call it life.
The idea of higher education itself scares some young Christians to death. When I graduated, I had recently reached an amazing point in my faith: I came to know the Gospel. Weird huh? You can live your whole life around Christians and in a Christian household where the Gospel is very apparent, but still be too stupid to understand it. When we Christians reach new and key points in our faith, we don't want to let go of them, just like anything else good in our life. I was listening to a fellow student last night speaking at a worship service on many topics, and one was giving things to God to let Him show you how beautiful they truly are, but we do not want to let them go. As truly strange as it seems, that applies to "spiritual enlightenment". When you discover more of the truth and want to hold it and hug it, give it to God.
Young Christians holding on to their great love for Christ do not want to let go. And then we graduate. That's when we remember all of the things our friends and leaders have told us about how evil scientists are. Now college is in jeopardy. After all, college campuses are breeding grounds for white-haired, wrinkly, angry, evolution-teaching, atheistic scientists who will stuff my carcass in a test tube after their done listing off my logical fallacies for an hour. That, of course, leads us to small-campus, "Christian" schools with classes like Puppet Ministries 101. I don't want to dis those schools or their students, but I do really hope that people actually feel that they should be there and didn't run away from Angry Atheist Einstein in the Chem-Phys building. I really think that happens more often than not. I don't know why.
Here I am on a gigantic campus, with a fine science department, mind you, and I've never been around the Gospel as much as I am now. It's in the air, and the walk to class. I see the Gospel when I attend a weekly campus ministry meeting, when I go to a Bible study, and when I hear people puking themselves to sobriety in the bathroom stall.
Being a Christian and a student is a great American mission-field. What more do you want? We have hundreds of humping, puking, drunk people just like ourselves, running around every weekend. Where do you find a better opportunity to separate yourself, to let Christ shine through you, and to see what we're all like at heart? I need to see what my flesh wants before I can understand why I need Christ. I'm taught what my flesh wants in the classroom. I hear what my flesh wants on the walk to class, I see what my flesh wants in the vast potpourri of girls skimpy outfits, and in partying drunks.
This is what I believe it should be like to be a Christian student. You can learn from the smallest events and the biggest, whether or not they involve Christ. Christianity involves some learning; learning from Christ as we know Him more and more. Christians, we're all students, no matter what you're doing.
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| | Posted 12/6/2006 12:41 AM - 109 Views - 6 eProps - 3 comments
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