Student Blog - God's Plan Doesn't Leave us Hopeless

The Divergent book series by Veronica Roth is one of my favorite book series because it presents an interesting thought about human nature. For those who haven’t read it, the series is about a dystopian society that wants to be a utopian society so badly that they attempt to correct people's genes and make perfect people.

"But when the genetic manipulations began to take effect, the alterations had disastrous consequences. As it turns out, the attempt had resulted not in corrected genes, but in damaged ones. Take away someone's fear, or low intelligence, or dishonesty...and you take away their compassion. Take away someone's aggression and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assert themselves. Take away their selfishness and you take away their sense of self-preservation."

So what does this have to do with God and our lives? Let's go back to the beginning...

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:1-5 NIV)

This verse is another version of the creation story. It all begins with God lighting up the darkness and then everything else stemmed from that light. Darkness is defined as the absence of light so darkness can't exist without light. Similarly, as the quote above mentions, fear, dishonesty, aggression, and selfishness can't exist without compassion, motivation, and self-preservation. When humanity fell to temptation in the garden, the tree wasn’t just the knowledge of evil in the world, but of good and evil. Evil couldn’t exist without also the knowledge of good. God’s plan didn’t leave us hopeless.

2 Corinthians 4:6 says “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”

God is the light in our lives that combats the knowledge of evil that is inside us and out in the world and helps us shine His light into the world so that everyone may see the good of the world.

So I’m going to get a little grammatically technical now, but I really like how the John verse ends: "...and the darkness has not overcome it." The rest of the verse is written in past tense until that last sentence. Then it is in the present-perfect tense which means it started in the past and hasn't ended yet. It's reassuring to know that even when we stumble and let the darkness get to us, God's light will be there.

John 8:12: When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

We are sinful people and all have "damaged" genes/characteristics/feelings that we have to deal with sometimes, but without them we wouldn't know the good side of life either. We wouldn't understand the feelings of joy, happiness, contentment, compassion, motivation, or love. We can’t get rid of the knowledge of evil in this world, but as long as we keep our eyes and hearts on Jesus and strive for perfection, the darkness won’t overcome us.


- Raye H.

Student Blog - Hot Chocolate Story

Today, I have a story for you.

It was June of 2013. I was going through my training at MugWalls, a local coffee shop that I just started working at, and we were learning how to clean everything. When the manager went to show both of us trainees the back storage room, however, we were greeted with a foul smell from two large containers that, as I was informed, could keep a beverage hot for 18 hours and served 100 people each. Amazing! How useful these things were, especially when catering to a huge group. They could do something entirely necessary by design, bringing a wonderful warm drink to many people at a time. However, there was the unfortunate matter of the terrible smell.

As it turned out, these fantastic containers had been used to take hot chocolate to an event in the neighboring town known as “First Friday,” a sort of art festival that takes place in the streets, back in April. But when the event had ended and it was time to bring them back to the store, whomever was in charge neglected to empty and clean them, instead throwing them into the storage room to hold the hot chocolate. Time went on, Texas weather did exactly what you would expect, and it got hot. Like, really hot. Hot chocolate, as you know, has milk in it, which does not take well to being left in a warm room for two months, leaving us to find that awful smell during our training.

This isn’t a story that’s just about cleaning at a coffee shop, though. When I was a kid, I had a responsibility, a task. I was supposed to spread love to the world around me, showing everyone who was broken that they had been given the wonderful gift of life and salvation, but instead I kept it locked away, viewing it as my secret. I was full of hot chocolate, but I allowed myself to reside in a warm storage room and sour instead. But do you know what we did after we found those containers? We took them into the kitchen and scrubbed them for the better part of two hours, painstakingly getting every bit of mold and grime out of them. They still had a bit of a smell, but nothing nearly as bad as before, so we let them air out. In much the same way, I spent the latter part of high school trying to break down my cynicism, scraping out the love that had turned to hate over time. For a while, the cynicism and lonesomeness stayed as a ghost, whispering its old message even when I tried to send it away, but as time went on the ghost grew quieter and quieter until I could hardly hear it anymore.

We all have the great potential to love one another and do such fantastic things. Don’t let that love sit inside and spoil, because it’s the best thing a person can offer.


- Zac L.

Student Blog - Better to be in the Mountains than just Looking at them.

Howdy guys, I hope everyone has had a good semester so far, and good luck to everyone on their upcoming exams. I was thinking about what to write and it dawned on me that one of this year’s themes here at Wesley was “change”. So I figure that’s as good of subject as any to talk about. As I mentioned in my leadership themed message just after spring break, a leader should seek significant change in trying to better his organization. With the school year coming to a close, some of us will indeed face significant change. A month from now, I’ll be on my way to sleep in a tent all summer in the mountains that I am flying over as I type now. Some of us will be moving on either to other schools or to getting a full time job in the workforce. These are indeed significant changes. But what I want to talk to all of you about are the changes that can be made to improve the Wesley foundation when we all reconvene in the fall.  

This fall’s theme was “Embrace the Change”. Forgive me, maybe it is just my failing eyesight here in my old age, but I was quite a bit unsure at what I was supposed to be embracing. New people are a form of change, I suppose I could go around hugging all the new people. But, I feel like that has been tried in the past to mixed reviews… I mean, I guess I could embrace the new color on the bathroom walls or the new name of the Wednesday worship service, but I’m not really sure how to embrace that, nor am I sure how that even constitutes a change. After all, “What’s in a name?...”. All in all, I thought things appeared to pretty much run the same as they always have. I still see new people walk out without being greeted by anyone, people still don’t give others the time of day if it disagrees with their own idea, leaders setting a poor example, and people still won’t sacrifice their personal time to help anyone but their significant other.

But enough about the past, this year is practically over, so I want to focus on next year, and in doing so I want to propose a slightly different mantra. Rather than “Embrace the Change”, how about something on the lines of “God will change you from the inside out”. As stated earlier, many of us will be leaving College Station for the summer, and many of us will also have much more free time on our hands than we do during the semester when we are all so poor at managing time. I just want to urge everyone to take advantage of all that free time and take a look inside yourself. What things can we change as an individual that will help make Wesley more like the image God had in mind when he created us, aka how can we improve ourselves to help us better show God’s love to each other, new incoming students, and the community? After all, “If I speak in the tongues… of angels, but have not love, I am only a clanging cymbal. If I can…. fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing”.

All of us have things that we can change in our lives to make us more like Jesus. Maybe it’s that we’re selfish or too arrogant to truly listen to others sometimes. Maybe we have anger issues or cannot control our tongue. Maybe we have issues with sexual immorality or covetousness. Maybe we are lazy or quarrelsome. Maybe we simply lack the faith to step outside of our comfort zone. The list goes on (for a more exhaustive list of things where each of us has room for improvement, please see the Bible for reference) but there are traits in all of us that could obviously use some work, and all of these individual failures detract from the experience that those around us have when they come to the Wesley Foundation. True none of us can achieve perfection, but we are to be moving toward perfection and are called to run the race in a way that we may win the prize, and the further from perfection that each one of us is, the further from perfection our organization is.

In summary, please take some time this summer for some introspection. We have googols of great opportunities here at the Wesley Foundation, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few… Beseech the Lord to send workers into His harvest”. We must prepare ourselves to be sent into the harvest as workers in the Lord’s kingdom. Besides, the peace of Christ passes all comprehension. In addition to helping out the Wesley Foundation and our fellow classmates, we will all be more free to live life to the fullest with the peace and joy of Christ. That’s a change I can embrace. 

Student Blog - Little Things

Got a little story for ya, Ags!

 A couple of weeks ago, I had an interview for a summer internship in Houston.  I was really nervous, and honestly I wasn't very excited about it (I'm sure you've had that feeling- who likes interviews, right?).  I wasn't really paying attention while I was driving so I ended up taking the wrong exit off the highway.   To make matters worse there was a man soliciting for money at the red light where I was trying to make a U-turn.

Great.

Of course I was at the front of the line, so he came up to my car and I rolled down my window.  It turned out the man was collecting money for a church who ran a drug recovery program and was trying to keep it open, so I decided to go ahead and give him a few dollars.  He was SO thankful.  He gave me a bottle of water (which was great- I was pretty thirsty) and started chatting with me about my day and where I was going, so of course I told him that I was going to an interview.  He congratulated me and started to walk away, but then he came back and said the last words that I ever expected to come out of his mouth.

"Can I pray with you?"

So I ended up at an intersection holding a complete stranger's hand while he prayed for me.  While he has probably long forgotten me, that man's gesture touched me more deeply than he could ever know.  In fact, I went back to that intersection after my interview to let him know how it went, but he was gone.

My challenge for you this week is to go out of your way to do something nice/unexpected for someone, whether it be a friend or a stranger.  John 13:34-35 says:

"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." 

Random acts of kindness are a great way to show this love, especially as we approach the end of the school year and stresses are running a little higher than usual.  I hope that you all have a great week.  We're almost done!

Bonnie

Student Blog - I’m Thinking of Lilies and Birds

When the course schedule for the following semester is posted, there is always a sudden cease of productivity. We get caught up in planning the next load instead of trying to conquer the one right in front of us. This is especially true for me, since I have a tendency to get caught up in planning my entire life. But if there’s one thing that I’ve learned, is that life is too arbitrary to plan every minute detail.

Last summer, I decided it would be a good idea to look over my degree plan just to see what I needed to take in order to graduate. When I saw that I had less than I’d originally thought, I freaked. It was looking like I was going to graduate early. And I did NOT want any part of that. So I thought and thought and thought about what I could do in order to prevent this from happening. The solution seemed obvious. I needed to add a new minor.

So here I am, almost a year later, trying to complete a minor that gives me more trouble than it’s worth, and I’m not so sure that I’ll even use it. Now it’s time to face the truth: I’m graduating in two semesters whether I like it or not. I’ve never prepared myself beyond that point, and that’s why I think I’ve been so afraid. I can’t see everything that lies ahead of me, and I’m never totally able to trust that everything is going to be completely fine.

But that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Nothing in life is guaranteed. God doesn’t promise riches. He doesn’t promise academic success. And He certainly doesn’t give us the answers we want the moment we want them. Even though these things aren’t certain, we are promised to be loved, and we are promised to be cared for.

“Consider the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

Luke 12:27

When we consider how much greater God created us compared to the rest of Creation, we know that we will be taken care of no matter what comes our way. Giving your life to God may seem risky, but at the end of it all, everything will turn out better than anything we could have planned on our own.

Shelby Olive

Student Blog - Running from God by Running for God

     It sounds absurd at first when you think about the title, running away by serving God, and it is under normal circumstances. Usually Christians try to show their faith through service, no matter how big or small, and normally they get some spiritual growth out of it too. However, just like eating dessert for every meal, there is a limit on what you can do as a follower of Christ without endangering your spiritual health. By doing too much, we can limit ourselves spiritually through the sheer volume of obligations and our own fatigue.

     Before we dive too much into detail I should clarify that I believe James 2:14-26 to be accurate and that one should have both faith and works for a strong relationship with God. That being said, the scripture states that without one, the other is not enough to live a Christian life. James 2:14-26 states:

14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  

18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.  

20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.  

25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. 

     As you can see your relationship with God has a balance to it, kind of like a set of scales, or platform on top of a single pole (think Indiana Jones styled booby trap). If you put too much weight onto one side then the device becomes off balanced and everything falls. This works the same way with your faith and service. If you put too much time into doing works for God, you leave very little, if any, time for scripture and faith.

     Right now at Wesley, we are very busy, in fact we are so busy that this semester there are only 3 weekends where something isn’t going on (and two have passed already). Adding on school work, relationships, and other organizations, leaves us very little time for a break, let alone spend large amounts of quality time with God. I know saying this makes this post feel like I’m targeting someone in particular so I’d like to explain a bit. When I was way younger (think just able to drive, scary thought) my youth minister at the time had a sermon on how the church as a whole tends to ignore Matthew 7:3 ( “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?). Instead, it likes to pretend the congregation is perfect and that they’re above others because they go to church and do the “right” thing. I have taken that sermon to heart and have expanded the idea to include Matthew 7:4-5 as well. So again to clarify, this is not an attack on anyone but instead a way to send a message while identifying one of the many planks in my eye.

     Personally I love doing good deeds for others, and if one needs me I’m always a phone call or text away. However, I tend to have a very bad habit of overexerting myself to the point in which if I were in the Hunger Games I would have volunteered as tribute before Prim’s name was even drawn. Now this isn’t always a bad thing and I’ve truly had some remarkable experiences, but looking back I have taken some serious steps back in my faith journey. My choir director back home used to tell us it wasn’t about what we’ve done churchwise, it was about how much we’ve grown spiritually. And in the past year and a half at Wesley, I’ve done so much that if I listed it all out this post would be twice as long as it will be. That being said, my faith has probably regresses a bit. (To be honest this post would probably be the first step forward I’ve made in a long time) Before I used to pray, not so much out loud but at least privately, I attempted to read the bible on a regular schedule, and I spent time reflecting on my faith. Today however, I hardly pray at all, my bible has a layer of dust on it, and there is hardly time at all to even consider the first two items of this list, let alone my faith. I have actually begun to run away from God, and what he was trying to tell me, by ironically doing deeds, services, and acting as a Christian should (mostly on that last one). This is not good, for me, for those who look to me as Christian, and for my relationship with God.

     Jeremiah 29:13 states “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Therefore, one who is too busy to find God, or simply too exhausted, cannot find him, even if they are too busy doing services for the Lord himself. You see there is a balance that must be struck and rest is indeed encouraged (I believe it’s called a Sabbath), but not so that one can simply rest and slack off. There’s more to it, it was made for man to allow an opportunity to spend some time reflecting, praying, and building a relationship with God.

     I now leave you with this challenge, a challenge I myself have recently taken. Examine all that you do, and then examine how much you’ve grown spiritually in the past year. See if you have a balance or if something is missing. If something is missing, then figure out a way to fill the void. If you have the balance you desire then excellent, but either way find ways to improve your spiritual growth and actually do them. Find someone or something to keep you accountable and in another year start over, because as humans we can never be perfect, but we can try to get as close as possible. Finally I want you to never stop running for God, but never run away.

-Wes

Getting Back Into A Routine

Spring semester is the busiest semester, with Wesley events, sporting events, retreats, and then fitting school into all of that, it becomes pretty tiring. Spring break comes at just the right time, and Work Project this year was so incredible and so much fun. We got back from Crowley, Louisiana on Thursday and the majority of all the Wesleyites go back home to visit family for a few days. It wasn't until I woke up this morning and realized how much I lost my routine, how hard it was to wake up, to exercise, to remember what my schedule was. We are all so busy, and go, go, go and then Spring Break is a time to relax and we get off our usual routine. We eat whatever we want because we are on vacation, as a Wesley student put it; everything is calorie free when you are on a vacation, or having a bad day, especially chocolate. The ability to follow a normal long-lasting routine requires more than just self-discipline and determination. It also requires the establishment of habits. We need to get into the habit of waking up at a certain time, and following through with our morning routine completing our most important tasks for the day before we move on to others. This is the same thing as our spiritual routines. Just as we can get into healthy physical activities like running, we can get into healthy spiritual routines like setting aside a time to pray or praise God. In Psalm 143:8 David says 

“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go for to you I entrust my life.”

He is saying that the morning time is the right time to praise God and ask for His direction. The morning is, for the most part, a fixed schedule for every day. I know when I try to put this off for the night, I either never get them done and wait till the morning and/or last minute or I just don’t do it at all. This happens when studying for tests, writing papers, exercising, whatever needs to get done, but if I put it into my morning schedule I am more likely to do it every day. Like wake up, exercise, shower, eat breakfast, do my quiet time, get ready for work. Boom. Bang. Done. And if something goes wrong that day, or I don’t do one of those morning activities my day feels off. It took me ffffoooorrrreeevvver to get into this routine, it took me a few months but I worked out. Spiritual routines are the same way and could be compared to the habit of running. The more regularly you work out, the more you want to do it, and staying in shape is much easier that getting in shape. If you pray, read the Word on a regular basis it because a habit and something you look forward to and if you don’t do it every day, your day just doesn't feel complete. So I challenge you to make a habit of praying to God a certain time or having a regular quiet time and make a daily routine and devote time to God.

Lindsey R.