The Final Post… (Well, that gets graded anyway)

There are a lot of things that we’ve talked about this semester…and this post is supposed to be the cherry on top, the pick of the litter, the tale to end all tales. But I have a hard time writing it out like that. I think that it’s mostly because the really isn’t a way to end something like this. When there’s always something new to learn, it’s hard to state anything as a sure fact, because something will come along that will deepen your understand of said “fact”, or even convince you that it isn’t a fact at all. 

But I think that there are a couple truths that have stuck out to me more than others.

First comes from the beginning of the semester when we talked about branding yourself, making your mark. This isn’t easy, and it requires that you have faith in yourself, which can be the hardest thing to do. I don’t know about you, but I can’t see into the future. I can’t tell if the current plans I have are going to work out, and the idea that I have to trust my future with someone as fallible as I am…haha, well it scares me.

But (and forgive me if this gets a little personal), it all has to come back to faith. And not faith in myself per say, but faith in God. A fear of mine is that I will miss the right place and the right time (especially for meeting that special someone)…that I will ignore the promptings from the Lord and then *poof* opportunity gone. But God isn’t spiteful, and I think that if something is truly good for us, and is critical to our development, He will give us multiple opportunities. So who are we to decide that if we follow a path we’ll fail? Who am I to tell the Lord what will and will not happen?

Yes we make decisions, yes we are responsible to make sure we’re proactive and industrious, but if we miss an occasional opportunity that isn’t the end. One of my favorite Bible stories is about Peter, and how he denied Christ the three times. He knew that would happen, Christ had told him. So could he have avoided it? Yes, he probably could have. But he didn’t, he failed. Yet, because of that failure, Peter was taken to a point in his life where he had to do some serious self-searching, and I believe that this was the point where Peter’s inner resolve became settled, and he never denied the Christ again. So in the end, I think that small failure set him up for success as one of the greatest biblical teachers in the New Testament.

So remember, there will be times that we fail, where we fall and believe that we’ve hit the bottom. But that failure could well be the springboard into successes that we never imagined were possible. So if there are two points that I guess I’d like to narrow down from this they are these:

1. 1.      Do what you believe isn’t possible, and believe in yourself.
2. 2.      God’s end goal is His own, so when you feel that you’ve been set up for failure, remember that it could very well be your own springboard to success.

It’s been a fabulous semester, and I look forward to seeing the growth and changes that continue to happen in my life because of the principles that I’ve learned here.

Thanks Brother Nygren for an awesome semester of learning!

-Shayla