This time of the semester is truly the hardest. The entire campus is swamped with group projects, presentations, and finals. I know the feeling all too well. The feeling like you can't do it and breaking down. Then feeling like the one subject you're thinking about giving up studying, determines whether or not you are going to be successful in life. It's the vicious cycle that every college student finds themselves in every semester. The wonderful truth is it doesn't have to be that way. At the end of our lives, we inevitably face our end, no one is going to remember us by the 'C' we got our second semester of sophomore year. I was reminded of this a few week's ago in my sorority's chapter. The girl giving the devotional that night stated that God isn't going to judge us on our grades. He isn't going to meet us at Heaven's gate and tell us to turn around and push the down button on the elevator because we failed a semester of Spanish. If he did, he wouldn't be the God we know.
In the book of Jeremiah, God states that he has a plan for us. One that will not hurt us but one that will give us a future. A future! It was written thousands of years ago that the test you are going to take is not going to matter in God's prospering plan for us. In the book of Matthew he states "If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers — most of which are never even seen — don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met." (Matthew 6:30-33 The Message) He states multiple times through his word that we are not to worry. He gave us the stress to tell us to slow down and give our problems to him. He gave us the feeling of being tired and worn out to tell us to take a break. He's putting us in the hard situations that are associated with the end of the semester, to teach us to walk with him through it and trust him completely in not only a final, but in our lives.
Putting your life in the hands of someone you can't physically see is a hard challenge, because for most people seeing is believing. But what some people don't understand is that we can physically see what he has done for us every day. He provided the shoes on your feet, the food that you eat, and the college you attend. All he asks of us in return is for us to have a relationship with him and to trust him in everything you do. That includes the finals you are about to take. I'm not writing this to scare you, but to make you step back, breathe and place the test in God's hands and let him take control.
