A letter to my college kid

The world you are living in now is like a step out of time - college is an environment all its own.  There is much to learn and gain there in knowledge and friendship and skills, but there is a built in unreality as well.  You are not at home like you were while growing up, but you're not a self-supporting independent adult either.  Ideas and values and goals and pursuits are swirling around you constantly.  There are highs and lows that span a huge range; you are swimming in a morass of emotional, intellectual, social and logical relativism.  The prevailing tune pulsing through it all is like 17 songs each playing at full volume at once.  You have no idea how strong my urge is to go and grab you and pull you home.

But in many ways our home is similar, just on a toned down scale.  The truth is this is the world man lives in.  It is full of sights, sounds, pursuits, duties, distractions, contrasting and conflicting thoughts, opinions and ideas all seemingly competing for our time and attention and loyalty.  You know the answer to how to survive - and not just survive but thrive - you must anchor and center yourself so you can put down roots and begin to build a life that reflects, supports and promotes your core values.  You must choose who you are, what you will believe, what you will protect and promote, what you will fight and struggle to defend and protect.  Who you are is what is up for grabs in this world.  Sometimes we forget in the midst of all the chaos that who we are is up to us.

Jesus told a parable of two men who each built a house.  The difference was the foundation each chose to use.  One man built his house on the sand; one man built his house on a rock.  The storms came and beat against the houses, and the waters became floods that swirled around them.  The house on the sand never stood a chance - the sand shifted and flowed out from under it and the house collapsed.  The house on the rock remained firm throughout the storms and remained intact after they had passed. This world we live in is both the sand and the storm - the ideas, values, expectations and goals constantly shift just like sand, and things come at us throughout our lives that are beyond our control and beat against us just like the storm and the flood.

Our only sure hope is to anchor ourselves to God.  He is a solid rock, huge, mighty, immovable, unchanging.  You were created by Him as a spiritual being in a human form.  You are meant to be connected to Him in order for any of what you experience to make sense or have meaning, purpose or direction.   You will remain adrift, like a cork bobbing in the sea, until you find your home in Him.  In Him we live and move and have our being, and even as the world swirls and changes and calls to us with seemingly endless options, He will guide you through and light the path that is uniquely yours - the one He planned for you from before creation.  The one He uniquely formed you to live.  This is truth my child.  I would not lie to you or ever point you toward false hope.  I am praying that this year He will ignite in you a fire that drives you to seek Him and find Him true.