Looking to get the most out of your college years? Alex Chediak’s Thriving At College is a welcome look from a someone who has succeeded both as a student and as a professor. Download the beginning section here. You can purchase the Tyndale publication from Amazon here.
Dear Collegians,
I hope your second semester is off to a good start, and that there aren’t too many cobwebs from Christmas break. It was great to see so many of you when you were back home, and if I didn’t get a chance to see you then, hopefully I’ll get a chance to connect with you over Spring break or another weekend you stop by Garner.
As you’re dealing with the business of life, studies, relationships, and work, it’s easy for all of us to get so caught up in the details that we never spend any time actually living for anything. But let me warn you – don’t waste your life. Don’t spend all of your time living for the details and missing the big picture. Not only is it possible, it is natural for Americans to be consumed by pleasure and business and a whole host of other temporal, trivial issues in life. But there’s only one way to live so that you don’t waste your life. And that is to live in such a way that demonstrates that Jesus is more valuable and priceless to you than anything else in this world. He’s more valuable to you than money or marriage, or power or pleasure.
Our Lord Jesus finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. – C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
If you’d like to learn more about how to live in such a way as to not waste your life, I’d encourage you to download this free book – Don’t Waste Your Life (.pdf format). Its written by a pastor who has mentored me through the years named John Piper, and you can find more about him and his ministry here.
You are in the years of your life when you are making a lot of decisions that will define who you are and what you do for years to come. My prayer for you (and for myself) is that you wouldn’t come to the end of your life and sadly whisper, “I’ve wasted it.” If you ever want to talk about this or anything else on your mind, get a hold of me: pastorbrian AT zionerchurch Dot com or 641.923.3152. I’d love to talk. Until then, don’t waste your life but let’s live for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Hope to see you soon,
Pastor Brian
Brian J. Lund 