This is an entry I wrote right out of college-- I need to catch you up to speed on my life. And when I say "you", I mean the 3 people that read this. :)
How fast my mind can change, how fast my heart leads me another way. This time around I have some post-graduation thoughts. Taylor University: a school where you either love that everyone is trying to do the same thing or you completely rebel against the mainstream even if you believe in it. Almost every student at TU is giving it their all to form a closer relationship with their Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ. An admirable act, but also a confusing pursuit to conquer when there are 2,000 kids all trying to do it together. Before entering TU, I cherished the uniqueness that came from being a Christian in a public school. I am sure I cherished it for many selfish, attention-getting ways, but I also cherished that it gave me power and influence over my peers to show them a different, more meaningful lifestyle. When I entered TU all of that uniqueness (what I identified myself with) was stripped away because everyone was the same because of the very thing that made me unique in high school. I had learned to love to be different and I think as Christians we are called to be “Set Apart” and I had trouble thinking any of us were set apart from one another in a world full of Christianity. Constantly the way you were going about following JC was being challenged (which is a good thing), but also it was trying to be “one-upped” as well. I hated feeling like my faith journey was a competition. And I never wanted to believe in something just because everyone else was doing it that way, so I protected myself from that. I strayed away from the typical way of doing things at TU so that I knew for sure that I wasn’t only doing something because everyone else around me was. While I believe that was a good thought I had, it also led me down some pretty shady paths. Now there were other factors that led into those shady paths (divorce and all its complications, an eye-opening study abroad trip), but I believe the main reason I went down the road less taken at TU was because I didn’t want to be your typical everyday Christian. Going down those shady paths I think can also be attributed to the mind-set attained from TU to “be like everyone else”. I was used to being unique from everyone in HS and countless times having to say “no” to many things, but at TU, you are constantly saying “yes, yes, yes” to everything because you want to be like everyone else, you want to do what everyone else is doing, and this is where your mind set changed from being set apart to being like everyone else (which can be a dangerous mind set change). This is where I learned that I let my circumstances define my faith. Once I walked off that graduation stage, I felt free to worship God however I wanted and whenever I wanted. And while that was liberating it was unfortunate to learn that while I didn’t let the people of TU influence the way I wanted to pursue my relationship with God, I let that fact alone ruin my closeness with the ONE GOD I was trying to please. I cared more about my selfish ways of doing things rather than His Perfect Will for my life. Now I have to fight my tendency to regret the time I wasted making mistakes. Or do I get to rejoice that God has given me those mistakes to reflect on and learn from them and use them to identify with people that are struggling with the same things? I tried to tell myself during my time at TU that “the rules” of Christianity were not what was important, and that breaking them would not hinder my passion for Christ. I was wrong. I watched my life slowly get worse and worse as I broke more rules. It is amazing to see how God really does know best. And that the guidelines he has given us to live and worship him will really result in the best life for you. So now I find myself struggling with the selfish thought of worshipping God to attain the best life? Or am I attaining the best life because I am worshipping God whole-heartedly? We will see where that question takes me….
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