Control. Like most humans, I desire to be in control. I want to be strong and do it all on my own. But Danielle Sallade’s article, Human Flourishing, reminds me that God is our provider. We were meant to live inside of his protection and control. Is our desire for control in a sense telling God that we don’t trust him? That he’s not powerful enough to control our lives? That we can do it better? Maybe we need to quit trying to be the CEO of our lives. As my fellow JBU student, Jordan Vaughan, says, “the best moments are when I give up the reigns [to God].”
Rest. I’m a college student, you may be thinking, I don’t have time to sleep. Why are you talking to me about rest? I understand. Sallade describes students who live lives without margins. I’ve only been at college for two weeks, and I am already feeling worn out and exhausted most of the time. There is always something happening. Join this! Do that! Help us out! Turn this in next class period! clamors the never-ending cacophony of demands for my time, my energy and my involvement. This pervasive busyness seems part of the fabric of college culture. I don’t want to be sucked in. Students around me seem to have lost the joy of learning and living. I don’t want to lose the wonder of discovery because I am buried in a seemingly never-ending pile of homework. I know I can’t go on like this forever, so why is it so difficult to rest?
Questions:
Are the many and varied demands that higher education places on college students helping them flourish or simply leaving them with no choice but to remove the margins in their lives and subsist with very little rest?
In Mark 2:27-28 (NIV), Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” In our culture of incessant busyness, is it time to return to the age-old practice of Sabbath-keeping, and if so, how do we do that as overwhelmed college students?
This is so true. I have a hard time giving up the director's chair to God. Why is it so hard to trust the one who created everything and loved us enough to die for us? Are we that afraid of what He would ask us to do? The answer is often yes, much to my chagrin.
ReplyDeleteThe whole reason God gave us the Sabbath was to give us a break because He knows we need it. So, to put lovely Laura's pertinent points together, we should trust God enough to listen to His call to rest. To be still and know that He is God.
Laura, you are a treasure.
Laura,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post for the first week. At the same time, it is basically a summary of the article. I would encourage you to use your blog posts to push beyond the reading material and express your own thoughts, even to challenge what the author had to say.
The same goes for your questions. They are, to some extent, obvious from the reading.
This is a great start, but I really want you to push beyond just summarizing information :)