Being a college student, it can seem as though all that surrounds you is a desert. A desert of faith in the peers around you and a desert of faith in yourself. This realization has the tendency to be extremely discouraging, and even debilitating to your faith if you let it. The blessing is this: that even when we feel dry, disconnected, and alone…we can always cling to the promise that our God is a God who provides.
College. Stress. Those two words seem to be almost always synonymous. College is full of new experiences, new friends, new decisions, and new responsibilities. All of which can be energizing and encouraging, or they can be overwhelming and a little frightening. The beauty of this stage of life is that even though our life is a hectic whirlwind of new ideas and new conflict, we serve a God who remains the same. A God who’s power and glory is everlasting. Through this, we know that from the beginning of our life, through the best of times and through the worst of times [in every season] we serve a God who is glorified in it all and that in itself gives us a reason to worship.
Broken and Tattered. Two words that describe each and every one of us. You don’t think so? Step back and take a look at your life. The hurt that we have been through, the mistakes we have made, and the battles that we have fought. When you really take a look, that brokenness exists in all of us. There are times when we feel so alone, times when we feel unlovable, but that is what makes the grace and mercy of God so beautiful…the fact that His power is made even more glorious through our imperfections. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:7-10, “But we have this treasure in Jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body of the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” We are fragile and we are afflicted in every way, but the Lord chooses to be glorified through us.
This is all easy to say and a great “pep talk” to someone who is feeling down, but is this really true? Is God’s love really unconditional? Why would God even want to be glorified through someone like me? After all that I have done? Does God not understand that no matter how hard I try, I will never be perfect?
At a worship service, I once heard a friend say something that I will never forget. It is found towards the very end of the book of Revelation, verse seventeen, and it says this; “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” This is written at the very end of the Bible. All of history has taken place. God has seen every sinful thing that you have done, and will ever do, and yet, He still says “Come.” The same God that created the heavens and the earth, the same God that rose Jesus from the dead, is looking at us. He see’s our imperfections, he sees our scars. It is as if he takes us by the hand and says “Look at me. I know where you have been, I know what you have done. Come. Take this gift. My son has already paid the price.”
We have a new found freedom in the grace of God. So walk in this freedom, and strive to praise God in every season of your life. Let your life be a desert song. A song of praise that follows wherever you may go.
