The Finals Season
I remember those days very clearly. I was taking that last final and heading 7 hours across Tennessee, to make it home by Midnight at my parents home. I remember waking up the next morning and realizing that I was back home but what was I going to do? I was going to eat momma’s food, give mom my dirty clothes and then go watch tv. Well if that is you, I empathize with you this holiday season. The reality is that this is not just college students that struggle with this issue, but all of us. It is the issue of living from one big event to the next. We hype ourselves up for “finals” and then we are done we don’t know what to do.
I’ve been a singles and college pastor for more that 10 years now and through my personal struggle with this and through counseling young adults, I have come to realize that most of us do this because we awarding ourselves in someway thinking that the reward (of which we don’t really know what it is) is much greater on the other side of this “final” in our lives. This final in life can be finishing school, moving to a new town, finding Mr. or Mrs. Right, or the joy of seeing having our first child. All these things are awesome but its weird how soon the elation dampens.
So what is the cure? What can we do to “fix” this problem? I guess the greatest advice and lesson I can pass along to you is that this life is not ultimately about those apexes in our life’s chapters. Yes, there is joy in the journey, but we need to realize that our joy, if Christ followers, is from our relationship with him. So if that is the case, we should realize that when we are planning for our “finals” we shouldn’t forget about our relationship with our creator and when the “finals’ are over we can thank him for what he has given us.
Take time this Holiday/finals season to look at the bigger picture.
Colossians 3:2English Standard Version (ESV)
2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Philip Brown
Singles and College Pastor at Ninth and O Baptist Church
