whatcha gonna do about it

Preface: I wrote this last September. It was the beginning of a really rough academic semester that stressed me out and made me question my major more than once.

God is not opposed to college degrees. There really are seriously broken people, relationships, and places wherever you go, including college campuses and first world workplaces. What God has taught me over the past semester is that it really isn't just about becoming a better person, being a shining citizen so that others will ask about it - it's about drawing close to God through his Word, through prayer, and letting him romance you into a love deeper and stronger than anything else, that will lead you to love and serve him however he would have you.

What are you going to do about it?

You believe this; you believe that. What are you going to do about it?

You believe that chocolate tastes good, or you believe your girlfriend is cheating on you. You believe that a day at the beach would do you some good, or believe that studying a couple more hours would get you a better score on that exam tomorrow. You believe that good scores on exams are important to living a good life. You believe a lot of things.

Do the things you believe affect the way you act?

What do you really believe?

You might believe this is a waste of time. Why should you spend time evaluating your beliefs? You do this way too often. You type and write and think about life; but how often are you out living it?

What’s my alternative at the moment? Go and study for another exam? Learn how the world works, regurgitate that information to your instructor, move on in life with a heavy piece of paper with a fancy typeface that you hope will magically gain you entrance to a less than thrilling day job that will return some funds to spend unsatisfyingly on your few days off?

No.

What do you believe?

You believe that you were made for something more. You believe that you were created to live in relationship with the great I AM, with the creator of this universe who gave his son over to death for your release from the chains of rebellion and pain that you’ve wrapped yourself in from the day you were born. You believe that your life is led by the power of the Holy Spirit who convicts you of your wrongdoing and calls you to a greater life every moment that you are alive.

This is a beautiful picture – I’ll grant you that.

Does what you believe change how you act?

I believe all of these beautiful things. But that seems like I would be called to a great adventure, that I would be called to the far places, to the far people, to the lost, to the broken, to give help to the seeking, to be a light in the darkness.

So we are told that the darkness is all around us – that there are friends, family, neighbors that are also broken but maybe they don’t realize it yet, and that we’re supposed to stay around them and be a good person so that they would see what a good person we were being and ask how we were so happy or full of joy or whatever and we could tell them that Jesus made us a lovely human being.

And so we study for that exam tomorrow to try and keep our cover. We’re just like you, we say. We struggle through exams and dysfunctional relatives, making the grade and having that white-picket-fence life.

What do you believe?

I am not just like that, but I am.

I believe that the Messiah, Immanuel – our Savior, God with us – that he has rescued me from the depths of my sin and is making me into something new and beautiful in the eyes of God. But I am no better than you or anyone else.

I’m probably going to wake up tomorrow and go to my workout with the track team. I’ll probably go to class after that, for 8 long hours, and after that I’ll study and eat food that isn’t good for me and I’ll hang out with my Christian friends and not mention God but once, and then I’ll go to bed and wake up the next morning to do it all again. And I know that’s not all right, but I know that I am a work in progress and even admitting that it’s not right is one step in the right direction.

But it’s only one step.

What do you believe – and does what you believe affect how you act?