It’s hard to look at the monstrous expectations of your future and of yourself and not be overwhelmed. I want to grow up well. I want to do this life thing right, honor God, finish strong. Keep going….

There are plenty of folks in Scripture I can see parallels with. It’s hard not to feel like Timothy sometimes, staring at a rag-tag congregation of Ephesians who are veering into idolatry and Paul’s far away and it’s up to his youthful, dreadfully inexperienced self to protect the deposit of truth and lead them back. The pressure against maintaining the Gospel even among his own was very real.

It’s hard not to feel like Daniel, a kid in a foreign land where they’re forcing him to melt into a new identity and making him do things his Jewish mother would gasp at, and he’s navigating the war between inner resolve and compromise. The pressure against living out his name as God’s Chosen was immense.

It’s hard not to feel like Solomon sometimes, who has so much to say and is pleading with his audience to listen, to just get wisdom already and seek the Lord for more than three seconds without returning to your vomit. The pressure to remain silent and slide into poor, foolish leadership was welcoming and tempting, I’m sure.

Being a Christian is like signing up to become a piece of Play-dough with a target on your back. The difference, though, is that you have your Maker as the steel rod in the middle of the Play-dough and the fuel for the tasks ahead.

The difference is that you actually have something to stand on. A wise man builds his house on the rock, Jesus Christ, and not on the shifting sands of this world. Matthew 7:24-27.

Unpacking my things for the long haul of the final 8 weeks of Spring semester, there’s a lot on my mind and heart. The people I talked with on the train today pursuing nothing but empty shells. My Northwoods church family and their need for unity in Jesus. My tasks list. The ugly demons of my stomach seeking pleasure in too much food over sustenance in Christ. Questions, wonderings, ponderings about the world.

The wisest person will fear the Lord and keep on going, not with blinders, but with the full knowledge that being in a relationship with God which brings him glory is what we were made for.

And he is seeable and knowable, despite the chaos of life and college and crumbs on my carpet my roommate forget to vaccuum.

He never left. What a love and steadfastness, even in this messed-up world.