These are messages that I wrote as a part of group I lead at my Alma Mater Gordon College, called Finish the Course. The purpose of this group was to encourage students during our hectic finals’ time (any one who has been to college knows what that is all about). I hope you enjoy them
1. The Cure
We at Finish the Course would like to remind you that during finals time, and for that matter any season of life, the thing that you should be striving after hardest is God. Right now this may seem easier said than done, but we hope this analogy will help you see how essential this is. Imagine you are sick with some disease, let’s call it, finalsapotoplis. You are desperate for a cure because you know the disease will kill you in 2 weeks time.
One way you could attempt to rid yourself the disease is trying different cures on yourself for example mixing together different potions, or engaging in strange ritualistic behaviors like smearing peanut butter all over yourself, all in the hopes of finding a cure. However chances are you will die before that happens.
The second approach you can try is to look for the one who has the cure or antidote to this disease. This one you guessed it is God. Instead of running around trying to find some cure for yourself, you should be swiftly pursuing God, the one who has the cure for whatever ails you.
This means when you feel yourself wearied with the symptoms of finalsapotoplis or for any disease of the soul for that matter, don’t begin the vain work of trying to cure yourself ( which in truth will only serve to kill you faster) rather take sometime, it could be a minute, it could be hour, and seek God. When you find God, He will give you whatever it is you need.
Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:12-13
2. Snowflakes
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Psalms 139:14
Last night I was in a people hating mood, this mood was inspired when I had asked a friend to join me for prayer, and she replied no followed by some lame excuse. I was upset because this must have been the 1,000th time this week I had heard his from someone. A few minutes later I was walking to the library, kicking snow all along the way, and reflecting on the suckiness of people; particularly, our tendency to fail to act in ways consistent with our beliefs.
I was walking past the Ferrin dorm, (on my snow kicking, people hating promenade), when I happened to notice these snowflakes cutout on one of the top floor windows. I stared at these for a second and was about to continue on, when I felt the unction in my spirit to stay and admire these snowflakes some more. At first as I was standing outside Ferrin just staring up at the snowflakes I felt a bit silly. And at first, looking at these lovely cutout only served to remind me of what a mediocre snowflake cutter I was (my snowflakes tended to look like tiki mask, rather than delicate crystals of ice) in comparison to whatever artist had made these.
However, I would soon realized why God had me there staring at the snowflakes, because thirty seconds later I felt God tell me something to this effect
“You know, people are a lot like snowflakes. I’ve made each of them special and unique” This truth resonated with me as I considered the beauty and intricacy of those snowflakes. Then God said “…When you get to know them, people really aren’t that bad. When you know them like how I know them, and understand how intricately and beautifully I have created them all, you can not help but love them… When you look at people you see what is wrong, however when I look at people I see as I’ve created them”.
In that moment God had gave me an answer to a question I had been struggling with all week, “How can God love people when people are just so sinful (myself included)?”
and also, “Short of being commanded to why should I love people?”.
The answer to why God loves people and why we in turn we should love people is that, people are God’s prized creation. He made us just like he makes the snowflakes, just like he makes everything else, fearfully and wonderfully (Psalms 139:14). Since learning this, I have repented of my people hating ways, and have vowed to love people just like God does (with his help of course).
3. Dirty Rags
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Eph 2:8-10
There is a song by Christian artist, Jason Gray, called “Everything I Own”.
The song talks about how Gray would give everything that he owned to receive the things we experience free through salvation, things like: a pure heart, an understanding of the words of God, the strength to do the right thing, and so on. In one part, Gray talks about what it would be like to present everything he owns for payment to God:
All I’ve accomplished the titles I hold/
my passion, positions, possessions, and gold/
To God they must look like a thimble of foam/
and its everything that I own/
Dirty rags are all that I own
This song and those lines in particular have been playing in my head for the past two days, and yesterday the meaning behind those words really struck me when I was cleaning out the fridge in the Academic Support Center. I was looking at the grimy napkins in my hand and thinking “wow, this is all that my good works are worth? Dirty napkins!” In that moment I was thinking about how unclean, inadequate, and wretched I was, and we all are, without God. It is very humbling to think that all the work we do, our studies our jobs, our volunteering, will not be enough to redeem us or make us clean in the sight of God.
Gray’s song goes on to say what God’s reaction would be if we stood before Him with our “stubble in hand,” understanding that it could not pay for any of the things that come through salvation.
So I stand before God with my stubble in hand/
He just laughs and says there still is a way/
Because “Father forgive them” are the words Jesus moaned /
he gave everything that he owned/
Yesterday when I looked at the napkins in my hands, my prayer became “thank you Lord for giving the proper payment for my sins.
And thank you, that because now I am in a relationship with you, my work doesn’t have to be in vain but it can be a part of the work you are doing and have been doing.”
I hope that as you think about your works, you will keep the perspective that all your works, as great as you may think they are, really add up to nothing but dirty rags. However, because of God’s grace, that work can be transformed into something of value, as God’s work of redemption takes place in us and in the world.
4. Virginia Tech
Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never suffer the righteous to be moved.
Psalm 55:22
Around four o’clock on April 16th, I remember walking into the third floor lounge of Chase. Ashley Frain and Kyle Anderson where sitting down there, staring starkly at the television, which I noticed was tuned to CNN. I turned to the TV figuring it would give some clue to why they both seemed so sober, and very soon I read the headline “Fatal Shooting at Virginia Tech.” This news took me aback and I, like Ashley and Kyle, began to listen intently to the news report, gasping when I heard that 28 so far had died and many more were injured. When I went back to my room, I sat there not knowing quite how to react. That day I had been extremely busy preparing for Symposium, which would be in 3 days, and my mind, up to the time when I heard about the VA Tech shooting, was totally immersed in Symposium preparation.
When I got back to my room I remember thinking, “Gee, that is so sad, incomprehensible, and senseless.” But then I also remember my next thoughts were “Ok Deneen, lets get back to planning for Symposium–you still have a lot to do, just push VA Tech to the back of your mind for right now, because you have to think about Symposium.”
So for 40 minutes I went back to prepping for Symposium. Thankfully, at 5:00pm, I decided I would take 15 minutes to pray before I went to dinner. During my first 5 minutes of prayer I talked to God about how burdened I was with all my responsibilities. And I told Him that I was sorry how, as a result, I had no time to really think or care about what happened at VA Tech. I explained to God that I just could not carry the weight and responsibility of this tragedy along with everything else I was already carrying.
God’s response, which I felt very distinctly, was “Why do you feel like the VA tragedy is your burden to carry? By the way, why do you think that all the responsibility of pulling off Symposium is your burden as well? Deneen the VA tragedy and Symposium are my burdens. Give them to me. Let me carry them and let go of it all because you were not meant to carry them.”
That conversation with God provided a breakthrough for me, because it was then that I realized the truth of Ps 55:22, which says, “cast your burdens upon the Lord and He will sustain thee.” It was then that I realized how at so many points in my hectic semester I was trying to make it on my own strength (superhero as I was); it was then that realized that I could not. I got up from that 15 minutes of prayer and I literally felt lighter. I knew, at that point, that in the midst of horrific tragedy, Symposium, and whatever else, God was God and He would see me through because He had the power to do so.
I hope right now, especially in the midst of finals, you will decide to cast your burdens upon God and I hope you, too, will discover His amazing power to sustain you.
5. The Little Snow plow that could
And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
Hebrews 6:15
Yesterday morning as I as lying in bed thinking about the alllllllll work that I needed to be done and I heard this persistent beeping. I peeked out my window to see what this was and I found out it was a snow plow pushing snow around the Bennet parking lot.
Upon seeing this I immediately began to sympathize with the snow plow. I reflected on how my work like the snow outside had completely covered the parking lot of my life, and now I much like the snow plow was endeavoring to push it out of the way.
As I listened to the beeping from the snow plow I hoped it would motivate me to keep plowing through my work; kind of like just like the little plow truck that could (I think I can I think I can). If anything I hoped that the noise would at least keep me from going to sleep.
A couple minutes later I went downstairs to the all hall worship my dorm had pulled together due to the snow, which turned out to be a truly awesome time of refreshment.
An hour or so later when I went back to my room, I looked outside and saw that the snow plow had made tremendous progress, enough that one could see the most of the asphalt covering Bennet. This gave me a lot of hope, (so much so I contemplated going outside and high fiving the snow plow driver). What was even greater is that later that day it rained, and this obliterated what was left of the snow (Snow 0, Snow Plow and Rain 1).
The point I hope you get from this story is that though our work might seem as if it is completely covering our life right now, keep on plowing through it because with persistence you will clear it away. And what ever you don’t get will be washed away.
6. The Law of Reaping and Sowing
Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap.
Galatians 6:7
Suppose there was a farmer who decided to plant bull thistle seeds (that’s a type of weed). Now suppose months later when he sees his crop of bull thistles he gets really upset and screams out “I thought I was gonna get wheat.” Most of us would call that farmer crazy, however, sometimes we students act like silly farmers. We sow wrong thoughts, actions and habits such as procrastination, slothfulness, idleness, and over commitment and expect them to result in something good (at least for the immediate future.) However sooner or later we learn that such things only lead to stress, frustration, and bad grades.
Often when we are faced with the undesired crops that our actions have grown into, we turn to God in desperation and ask Him to take them away. However, often it seems that God just sits back as we reap our unwelcome harvest. Maybe God wants us to put down the “bull thistle seeds” and pick up the good seeds, seeds such as prayer, discipline, and faith that will produce awesome fruits in our lives. With every action you take today, think about what fruit you will reap from it, bearing in mind that
The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Galatians 6:8
To milk this analogy a bit more, here’s a quote from 19th century author and dramatist Charles Reade, on those tricky little seeds called thoughts:
“Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny”
7. Magnify God NOT Your Problems
Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to his name
Psalm 66:3
During the business of finals and life in general, it is easy to get so caught up in our work that it becomes our idol. I mean idol in the sense that we devote ourselves to it, think about it constantly, and see it as our most important priority because “we have to get it done”. But in that little phrase is a reminder that we should not exalt schoolwork to this god-like level because in two weeks it will be “done”. In two weeks the things that seem the most important right now will not even matter. The One we should always exalt is God. He unlike, schoolwork is eternal, and He unlike schoolwork, ought to be magnified and seen as the most important thing.
This is a lesson I learned last week when I was preparing to do a presentation for Organic Chemistry, where my two teammates and I would have to go into a high school and talk about Green Chemistry (chemistry that tries to be friendlier to the environment). On Wednesday we had to do a dress rehearsal of our presentation in front of our Chemistry class. The night before, when we were preparing for it in the library, I was “freaking out” because there was a lot of work that needed to be done by the next day. When I left the library, or should I say stormed out of it, I was very unsettled about how this presentation would come together. The next minute when I was about to open my room door my RA who lives right next door, asked ” Do you want to go to worship at the bottom of Chase?” By worship she meant the Charismatic Christian Fellowship worship, a meeting I had been accustomed to going to every other Tuesday, though at the time I didn’t know that this is what she was talking about.
My instant reply to her was yes because I knew that going to worship (what ever worship it was) would make me feel better, and this it definitely did. It was in the process of praising God that I remembered how great He was in relation to all my problems and worries. And it was there that I found myself wondering how I could have ever gotten so upset about a chemistry project when God is such a great and loving God, and the same one who, I confessed time and time again, has my life all sorted out and in the palm of his hand. That night I left the fellowship with assurance that some how our presentation tomorrow would go fine, and that, without a doubt, our actual high school presentation would be awesome.
Well to make a long story short we did our dress rehearsal and it went better than I had been expecting (though still not that great.) The important thing, however, is Monday when we went to Boston Latin High school to give the actual presentation we did a phenomenal job, better than I had imagined.
The lesson I hope you take from all this is that we should magnify God and not our problems or our schoolwork (which right now are essentially the same thing). One way to do this is to take time to pray, worship, read the bible, do devotions, do anything that reminds us of who God is, and who He is in relation to everything else.
8. Think Positive
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Phil. 4:8
Pop psychology has filled our heads with the importance of staying positive (“think happy thoughts” : ). However, the right kind of positive thinking is not some “hippy dippy” philosophy made up by psychology gurus but a principle for living that comes straight from scripture. It is important that Christians, keep their minds sanctified, pure of wrong thoughts that will have detrimental effects on us. For example, as we try to do our final assignments we should not be telling ourselves “this is too hard,” “this is impossible,” “this sucks,” because these thoughts cause us to lose motivation and get dragged down. Instead we could replace these thoughts with “I can do all things through Christ who strengths me Phil 4:13” or ” God gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak Isaiah 40:29″.
I pray that as we go through finals and life in general, we ask God to guard our minds, or literally stand guard at the entrance of our minds, not allowing negative thoughts in, or kicking out the negative thoughts already there. I know to many the idea of positive thinking sounds trite and cliché but it’s actually a really simple, important, and profound idea that we ought to put to use.
9. Reliable Sources
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
Prov 4:7 7
Being in the midst of finals most of us have or will have to research information online. And many of our professors have probably warned us that when we do this, we should not use Wikipedia or other sites like it as our sources. The reason they give for this is that anyone can enter information or make changes to the articles on these sites and therefore these articles can’t always be trusted.
This weekend, as I was looking up information for my Organic Chemistry take home exam, I was trying to be a responsible student and stay away from Wikipedia. Instead, I promised myself, I would only use reliable sources. My professor likes to define these as ones that end in “.edu” or “.gov.” As I was trying to do my responsible research, however, I was getting really frustrated because anytime I “Googled” a word, the first sites that would pop up were the “unreliable” ones like Wikipedia, answers.com, factmonster.com. (The name of the last one had me especially skeptical). What was more frustrating is that the “reliable” sites that turned up on Google all had very obscure headings that made no sense to me, ( like IUCr Methyl 2,4-dideoxy-6,7,8,9,10-penta-O-acetyl-D-glycero–D …). As I was doing these Google searches, I remember thinking to myself “the Emery lab has books and online sources that have all the information I am looking for and I know that information is reliable and written in plain English. Forget Google! I am going to do my research there.”
Contrasting the quality of the resources places like Emery and Jenks provide, with things that pop up on Google, started me thinking about how the ways we seek information for academic research, parallel the ways in which we seek information for our lives in general. Wikipedia is analogous to own minds. Our own minds are really cool resources filled with tons of information which we have acquired in our experience of living. However, often when we have a question and enter it into the database of our minds, we come out with unreliable, even bogus answers which can’t be trusted.
God, however, is our ultimate reliable resource and He is always ready to give us reliable answers to our questions.
The problem we have with using reliable resources is that sometimes we would rather find a quick answer to our questions, and we are, therefore, willing to accept the first things that “pop up” when we think about an issue. Another problem is that sometimes when we are honestly trying to find reliable information or learn from true and good sources like the bible, the answers they present us with seem obscure and incomprehensible like “ the kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it Luke 13:19”
The truth is that doing research requires a certain amount of skill and knowledge, and we have to make the effort to become familiar with the resources we have at our disposal. However, once we get motivated to use good sources and become familiar with how to use them, we will find we have access to an infinitely vast storehouse of wisdom which we can continually go back to. And the knowledge and information we get from it will be so much better than anything we can come up with using our own minds.
I hope what I have just written makes sense, and if you come away from reading it with the conviction that you should find reliable resources for your research, and not just Google everything or look things up on Wikipedia, I will be happy. However, I hope you get the bigger picture of how God is our ultimate resource, of how we should seek Him for the questions we have about our lives, and that we can trust the answers that He gives us.
10. Leaves
If you are walking to Lane, to Jenks, or anywhere on campus look up at some point and notice that the trees now have bright green leaves on them. This was something of a revelation to me yesterday. Before you start wondering how the heck I made it to college, if just yesterday I learned that trees had leaves on them, let me explain. At the start of the semester most of the non-evergreen trees were bear. Therefore it is no surprise that most days this semester when ever I walked somewhere I would be paying more attention to the pavement and the umpteen things I had to do than to the lack of foliage on the trees. However yesterday as I was walking to Lane, the spirit of God spoke to me and basically told me to get my mind off the pavement and the upteen things I had to do; and start noticing the wonderful things God was doing all around me. And after the spirit said that I looked up, and I noticed the beautiful green leaves on the trees, which funny enough had been there for many days now. The message I took from this was that though I and everyone along side me has been “busy”, God has been even busier working things out on our behalf.
