It's okay to wonder what will make you successful or set you apart. After all, it's almost impossible to not think about it while you're in college. However, it's not okay when you ask yourself, "Am I good enough? Will I ever measure up or bring anything of worth to the table?" Because I know when you start to ask yourself that, you begin to feel stressed, inadequate, and downright stupid. I know that your grades aren't where you want them to be and your major is not coming easy. Figuring out your career, I know, can be so difficult. I won't disregard any of that. Although, I do want you to have a new perspective.
No. You are not a rocket scientist, but you are smart. Everyone learns in different ways; it surely doesn't surprise me that long lectures just aren't working out for everyone. You try and teach yourself what your professor couldn't with every possible method just to understand what's going on in class. I feel like the explanation you have for when all of those methods don't help you is that it must be YOU who's the problem. "I'm really not smart." We've all thought that about ourselves at one point, and the only thing I can say is that it's just not true. I think you and I are quick to downplay the difficulty of our major and blame ourselves. Don't disregard that your major is hard. I don't care what anyone else says, you know it's hard.
The education system isn't for everyone. Some people love it and some people are on their bare hands and feet just trying to get through it. Rather than discrediting your intelligence, recognize that what you have before you is a discipline. And that you are bold for accepting to be disciplined.
Finding out what you want to do after college is important, and you should do that while taking your time and being filled with sweet patience. It's 100% okay that you don't have life figured out. You feel this tension because you don't have things resolved perfectly. As humans we want to fix things, to fix and to fix. You want to tie things up real nicely, making sure that there are no loose ends. It's bad to have loose ends. But I disagree. In this tension, you will experience growth. We have to surrender to what we think tying things up nicely looks like, to what God has in mind. It's okay that you do not have clarity or know the next step. We are always trying to control what we cannot control, which is life itself.
I think Satan will try to get you to buy the lie that you have this outrageous flaw, then blow it up in your mind even more so that he can get you to fixate on it. It's easy to think that your career is of extreme significance, because right now that's what you're surrounded by and thinking about almost always. But that's one perspective. There's so much more.
Your eternal impact and the value of your words are not contingent upon your success in college or the high points of your career. You have your friends, your family, your church and all the other things God chooses to fill your life with. It feels like having a wonderful career will be the greatest thing we will ever do. I catch myself thinking this too. And I can't blame you, our whole life we have been in school and everything has been building up to this moment. You feel like it's the main thing. But we have to refocus.
God has a great deal in store for you beyond your career. He is not limited to that box. Work is good, and there is a purpose that He will make clear when He wants to, because He is God. But more than that, He wants to use you. He doesn't have to use us, His will would be accomplished either way. But He chooses to use you and I because He wants to, and because He's building a kingdom here.
He wants to fill your life with beauty. To take you on mountain tops and reveal His glory. To take you through low valleys to sharpen you as He lets go of your hand, while closely following behind, watching you grow. He is your Shepherd and the Holy Spirit is your guide. He is completely sovereign over your life and is in no way holding out on you, and He is most definitely not disappointed in you. You have to know that.
There's so much more to life, and there is much more to you.
