The Not-Yet Present

(Via Senexx)

   What do you do when your plans fall through?

   First things first, you can revel in the internal rhyme of the above question. Or, depending on your inclination, you can cringe at it. Now that's out of the way, though, what's next?

   A little over a week ago, I faced a severe disappointment when I learned that it would not be fiscally possible for me simultaneously to avoid debt and to attend The King's College in New York City. I still love TKC, and I fully support the institution's mission. That night, however, the sudden blow gave me clarity instead of sleep. Though I had to work at 5 AM the next day, it was a good trade.

    By closing that financial door, God allowed the fog of cultural demands and personal idolatry to part for a moment. The rejection stung, but over the next few days God continued to show me amazing things: truths which I previously had known but not accepted. Incredibly, divinely, the Lord chose that night to give me a growing peace and optimism. 

   I love to plan. I would love to spend every spare moment writing up step-by-step programs for achieving my goals. I suppose it's one of the places where the wide-eyed dreamer and the stubborn pragmatist in me meet. So far, though, those plans have not been successful. In fact, this latest failure was simply the most recent in a long string of defeated ambitions.

   Thus, I was again left with the following question: When we've planned and strategized, we've tried to follow wisdom and counsel, and we've done our best, how do we deal with failure?

   I've tried to face rejection many times before in my own strength, and have ended up in bitter despondency for months on end. What the Lord did this time, though, was miraculous. In the midst of the derailment of my future, He began to make me content, more hopeful about life than ever before, and confident for the very first time. He reminded me that all of life is an adventure. Gently, He reminded me that when we walk hand-in-hand with Him, there is no circumstance that we ought to fear and no excuse for self-piteous, self-absorbed apathy to the blessings and beauty all around us. 

   The Lord has closed many doors for me, and no doubt He has done the same for you. Yet He has also provided for us. He has planted every flower that we so admire during these burgeoning days of spring. He has written the hymn that every songbird sings as it builds its vernal nest. For many of us, He has given us families, freedom from oppression, and the chance to learn new things about the world each day. In this moment, the ever-slipping yet ever-renewing present, He has given me loved-ones, books, birdsong, and a sunnily verdant day of rest. Most importantly, He has led us to Himself and His word, wherein He tells us of His greatest provision of all: the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus, Who is now risen and pleading on our behalf, actively bringing us back into unity with God. By His grace and by the tender, life-giving ministrations of the Spirit, I trust that the same beautiful, majestic Deity who provides for my present will also provide for my not-yet present. 

   So how do we deal with failure? Surprisingly enough, we don't. We can't, at least not with any success. Only God can bring us through failure. It's such a simple thought, yet so incomprehensible until the Spirit makes it real for us. In the end, however, whether confronted with failure or success, we face it all with our hands in the hand of God, trusting that He will continue in His sovereign goodness and boldly awaiting the glorious adventure to come.

Why I'm Not Getting My B.A.: A Manifesto

      I have tried to take the well-worn path over and over. I've waited anxiously to hear from colleges and universities, and I've felt the surge of relief and shadow of pride that comes from acceptance. Afterwards, the real work would begin: fighting for scholarships, desperately scraping together funds from every cobwebbed corner.

      Yet time and time again, my debt-free policy has barred me from realizing my academic dreams. So, time and time again, I've tried to rally my resources. When one door remained firmly shut, I would settle for squeezing through any open crevice left to me.

       Today, a financial door remained closed. My history predicts that I ought now to be resignedly searching for a gap in the hedges. I should be crawling around, looking for some other way to join the masses, whether that be through a state university, online classes, or what have you. Today, though, the cycle just may have been broken.

       Much as I admire the college in question, today's disappointment has finally clarified the ridiculousness of my predicament. I want to learn. I want an intellectual challenge. I want to be pushed to become something more than I am. At the same time, I have clung to the idea that there is only one way to do that, and that way is to barter thousands of dollars and years of one's life on the off-chance of meeting one or two engaged professors along the way.

       As this final opportunity has been taken away, however, I have come to the following decision: I will not slave away, postponing a meaningful life and saving every penny I make over the next few years, just so that I can pay it all plus my time to some institution. I will not spend my youth in arduous labor for nothing more than the privilege of making a college rich. The myth of our society, that the vita beata can be bought for the price of hundreds of thousands of dollars and one paper certificate, is neither true nor tolerable.

      To achieve that to which I aspire, I need training. I know that. I know that I am woefully under-skilled and, more importantly, under-disciplined and under-passionate. I refuse, however, to bleed myself on the altar of the all-important degree. What we students are being asked to sacrifice is not just our wages but our time, our service, our passion, and our prime.
   
        The amount of money I have already given these institutions as part of my cultural homage is staggering. The amount of time and energy--which so easily might have been devoted to better causes--is by far a more terrible price. That ends today, dear reader. Whether or not I succeed in my goals, I will not continue to fall for the marketing schemes and the peer pressure of our age.


        An God wills it, I will find my own way.