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-Social media can make us lonelier.
-We want to be connected and heard.
-People need people, not a screen.

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Social media produces fomo- fear of missing out.

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- You can't take it with you when you go, so pursue the greater good.
-What do we trust in to get us to the next step?

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-Don't store up wealth. What's the point behind it? Life is fleeting.
- It's not wrong to live well, but it's wrong if that's the ultimate goal over Christ.

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-"Fear not" is one of Jesus' most repeated commands.
-All will be known: the good, the bad, and the secret.

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-Focus on the right things, don't worry.
-What do you consider your treasure? What do you value most?
-What's your heart set on?

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The Complication of Technology and Stuff

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The Complication of Technology and Stuff

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"God has ordained his bride, the Church, to work for the blessing and healing of our broken nations. As Christians, we are called to engage—to create culture that aligns with reality as God created it—to witness to the truth. To love our neighbors sacrificially, just as Jesus taught."

This video, although it reflects an online course, has good content that I feel reflects what it means to help "transform culture through Christianity".

The words that I reflected on after watching this video were "Living Lives that Matter".

Notice the video does not talk about if you are a nurse then reach people in the hospital, or if you are a teacher engage with those at school. Rather we are to go out and be a light in our community regardless of our vocation.

Matthew 5:13-16
"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

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God has ordained his bride, the Church, to work for the blessing and healing of our broken nations. As Christians, we are called to engage-to create culture that aligns with reality as God created it-to witness to the truth. To love our neighbors sacrificially, just as Jesus taught.

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"Our fate lives within us, you only have to be brave enough to see it" -Brave

-God has a special purpose for all of our lives that is established long before we are born. It is innate in us, and God uses the people around us to help foster the potential inside of us. We are made individually to work as a whole because we are not carbon copies of each other.

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Our work is often what becomes our identity and who we believe we are. However, if we do not know who we are, we cannot thrive in doing what we love.

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"You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

-Our Enneagram and Myers Briggs tests show us the person who God has created us to be, whether that is the person we thought or not. In class, it was mentioned that these tests show us the parts of the house and rooms our personality lives in, but it does not emphasize us how God fits in to those parts. It is equally, if not more, important to understand how God is using our unique self to further His Kingdom.

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This is a talk I gave recently to a Christian youth group.

What Is "God's Will" and How Can One Find It?

Roger E. Olson

There is probably no more important and confusing issue for Christian young people than "finding God's will for life." Many have heard that "God has a wonderful plan for your life" and been urged to seek God for his will. Whether told to or not, many have concluded that they should wait until God revealed his will or pray fervently for a revelation of his will before making any important life decisions. Many become all tied up in knots wondering what God's will is for their lives and attempting to find it. Some are paralyzed by uncertainty and miss opportunities; others rush into rash decisions because someone prophesied over them or they dropped their Bible open, pointed to a passage at random and interpreted that as God's will. Others have followed Gideon's example and put out "fleeces," tests to determine God's will. "God, if you want me to marry Becky, make it rain tonight."

Every Christian young person knows this dilemma-some better and more painfully than others. It's an enduring one-every generation seems to struggle with it. Unfortunately, one of its main causes is also enduring; few pastors, youth pastors, youth counselors, Christian college teachers, seem courageous enough to resolve the dilemma. Why? Because the weight of what I call "folk religion" militates against the obvious solution. Throughout America, perhaps the world, especially evangelical Christians believe in what I call the "blueprint model" of God's will. I'll come back to that after I explain "folk religion."

Folk religion is the popular, unreflective belief system of the masses. It's like folk medicine-some truth but also much error. And hardly a substitute for scientific medicine. Folk medicine is not based on rigorous research; it's based on rumors, clichés, anecdotes, desperation. Now don't get me wrong; science has discovered that some folk medical remedies and treatments help people cope with pain and disease. But rarely does it contain a cure for any serious illness. What's an example of folk medicine? "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." Sure, an apple a day is good for you, but it won't keep the doctor away or you away from the doctor if you catch an infectious disease or come down with diabetes.

Folk religion is similar. It's what is popularly believed by deeply devout people but without support other than stories, clichés, Bible verses taken out of context, unreflective beliefs based on comfort. For example, a common folk religious saying is that "God helps those who help themselves." It's nowhere found in Scripture and the weight of Christian tradition goes against it. In fact, it's a popularization of a heresy called Pelagianism or at least semi-Pelagianism-the belief that a person can exercise a good will toward God without God's prevenient, assisting grace. Semi-Pelagianism is one of the common beliefs of at least American folk Christianity. Songs like "The Savior is waiting to enter your heart; why don't you let him come in?" contribute to it.

Just as doctors struggle with their patients' reliance on folk medicine, so theologians struggle with Christians' reliance on folk religion, folk Christianity. Folk religion is unexamined faith, unexamined belief. Plato said that an unexamined life is not worth living, most Christian theologians (probably all) say the unexamined faith is not worth believing-at least for the mature Christian. That's why Christian colleges and universities have required courses in religion, Bible and theology-to correct students' folk religion and raise their faith to a higher level of reflection, critical thinking.

Back to the issue of God's will for life. Folk religion quotes Jeremiah 29:11 where God says to the remnant of Israel not taken into exile "I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Folk religion takes that verse out of context and applies it directly, uncritically, without examination of its true meaning, to every individual Christian's life-as if it is a promise that if a person remains devout he or she will prosper and never suffer harm. It's also used to teach that God has a specific will for each individual's life and enjoying God's blessing depends on finding that will and following it closely.

Of course, most of that is not in the text or the context. First, the prophecy is for Israel in that time and place; it can't be applied directly to every believer everywhere and at all times. On the other hand, surely God has the same general intention toward all his people. But second, the prophecy nowhere says that bad things won't happen to the people of God or promise that bad things will only happen if they deviate from his blueprint will for their lives. In fact, no place in Scripture indicates that God has an individual blueprint for each believer's life.

Time doesn't allow me to go into more detail exegeting that passage or talking about folk religion and its many ways of mishandling Scripture. Let me just reiterate that nowhere does Scripture teach that God has an individual, inflexible blueprint plan for each individual life.

So what do I mean by that? What is an "individual, inflexible blueprint" for life? The folk belief I'm urging you to reconsider, if you hold it, is that God has a detailed design for each believer's life and that it is the duty of each believer to discover it, live according to it, and that doing so brings blessings from God whereas deviating from it brings a life of sorrow if not disaster.

Let me illustrate. When I was growing up in church, a church that held "testimony time" every Sunday evening (and my dad was the pastor so I had to be there whenever the doors were open for worship, Bible study or prayer meeting!) a sweet little older lady often spoke of how cursed her life had been because she didn't follow God's will for her life. That struck terror in my heart. I was taught by my spiritual mentors that that is the result of "missing God's will." I formed the impression, as do many young Christians, that God has a blueprint plan for my life and that it's my job to find out what it is and follow it-to construct my life according to it. Where to go to college was one big issue for me. Whom to marry-another major issue. What profession to pursue. What job to seek and which job offer to take. All these have been major decisions of my life. And let me assure you that God has led me, but not according to an inflexible blueprint such that any deviation from it brought only misery and a cursed life.

I was fortunate that early in my Christian life someone gave me a book entitled Decision Making and the Will of God by theologian Garry Friesen. I read it and found it totally liberating. But some of my spiritual mentors strongly cautioned me against it because it contradicting popular belief about God's will, folk religion.

Friesen (and later Christian writers who popularized his teaching about God's will) taught that God does not have a detailed, inflexible blueprint "will" for every life.Rather, God has a general will for every believer's life and, when God does want a believer to do something, he tells them, they don't have to struggle to find it out, and even if they disobey God always has a "Plan B."

Now I'm going to paraphrase Friesen and add to his my own explanation of "God's will" for the individual Christian's life.

Every believer is urged by Scripture to receive gifts from God. Some of them may be natural talents to be discovered and enhanced with God's help. Others are supernatural gifting. The New Testament contains at least three lists of them. They can be found in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4. But, of course, Scripture is filled with lists of characteristics of character that God values in us. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and Luke contains some. The fruit of the Spirit listed by Paul in Galatians 5 reveals how God wants us to be formed in terms of character.

Instead of thinking of "God's will" as a rigid blueprint, I think of God's will as a set of paints and a canvas. The canvas is my life. The paints are God's gifting-some natural and some supernatural. For example, I discerned early in my Christian life, with others' help, that I had a natural gift for critical thinking. I believe as I sought the Lord for my life he elevated that into discernment. I believe I have a supernaturally elevated gift of insight that is both a curse and a blessing. I exercise it, for example, on my blog. For years I taught a course in a Christian college on cults and new religions and helped many even mature Christians "see" what I saw in certain religious and even Christian movements and fads. This gift inclined me naturally to a life of Christian scholarship, theology, and teaching-in churches and in educational institutions. I have also used it in writing and editing. Often well-meaning Christians have come to me and expressed enthusiasm for a new teaching they encountered in a popular book or in a religious magazine or on television. I have often had to say "No, that doesn't sound right. Beware. Here's why." That often displeases them, but I have to use my gift regardless of how it's received. Of course, I always use it with love and not hate or even harshness. At least I try.

For most of us, most of the time, "God's will" is simply to receive his gifts of character and service and use them to paint a beautiful picture on the canvas of life he has granted us. There is no inflexible, rigid, detailed divine blueprint for every aspect of life such that missing one piece of it, whether through ignorance or disobedience, leads to a miserable existence. No doubt there are life decisions that call for careful, thoughtful, prayerful discernment. However, that discernment process does not involve waiting for a lightening-like revelation of God's will; it normally involves rational, critical thinking and watching for doors to open and close.

Most of the time, allowing for exceptions, "God's will" is simply living a vital Christian life, being shaped in the character of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, walking forward trusting God to guide without intensive focus on a mythical blueprint. When there's an exception and God wants you to do something very specific he will show you clearly without you having to put out fleeces or pray for a special revelation or drop open the Bible and point at random to a verse expected to be God's clear guidance about that decision.

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What Is "God's Will" and How Can One Find It?

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This is a talk I gave recently to a Christian youth group. What Is "God's Will" and How Can One Find It? Roger E. Olson There is probably no more important and confusing issue for Christian young people than "finding God's will for life."

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Albert Schweitzer "I Resolve to Become a Jungle Doctor"

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Albert Schweitzer "I Resolve to Become a Jungle Doctor"

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"Only a person who finds value in any kind of activity and who gives of himself with a full sense of service has the right to choose an exceptional task instead of choosing a common path" (34).
-You should give all you've got at  your job to achieve a life full of meaning. Not giving it your all doesn't mean your life doesn't have meaning, but that it's just ordinary. An exceptional life is characterized by service.

*In our class discussion, we discussed how Schweitzer believes in giving genuinely and completely for the right reasons. As Christians, we are called to serve others. By serving others, we are able to glorify God and spread the gospel. This is one way to give our lives meaning, as Schweitzer says.

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Roger Olsen "What is God's Will and How Can One Find it?"

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Roger Olsen "What is God's Will and How Can One Find it?"

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"I think of God’s will as a set of paints and a canvas. The canvas is my life. The paints are God’s gifting...For most of us, most of the time, “God’s will” is simply to receive his gifts of character and service and use them to paint a beautiful picture on the canvas of life he has granted us. There is no inflexible, rigid, detailed divine blueprint for every aspect of life such that missing one piece of it, whether through ignorance or disobedience, leads to a miserable existence. No doubt there are life decisions that call for careful, thoughtful, prayerful discernment. However, that discernment process does not involve waiting for a lightening-like revelation of God’s will; it normally involves rational, critical thinking and watching for doors to open and close...
“God’s will” is simply living a vital Christian life, being shaped in the character of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, walking forward trusting God to guide."
-There is no set, detailed plan that God has for each of our lives. He gives  us unique gifts and talents, as well as his Word to guide us and shape us, but from there where we go and what we do is up to us. We don't have to live in fear that we aren't in "God's will" if we are living a Christian life- following his Word, striving to be like Christ and trusting in Him. He has given us gifts and talents, now it's up to us to find all the possible ways to use them to serve others and to show his love.

*Being at a Christian college, we are able to explore the idea that God has given us more than one gift, more than one unique talent. We are encouraged to explore the gifts God has blessed us with and to use them for the greater good. There is the idea that once you get a degree in one thing, that is what you should do for the rest of your life, but God's plans are often different than our own. We can find peace in knowing that if we are living a life that honors Christ, we are following His will.

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"Callings are strange things. I think I've heard a fair number in my time, perhaps fewer than I was supposed to-or maybe it was more...Sometimes they proved to be nothing more than echoes...and passed on their way. Others puzzled me, and led me into ways I do not yet understand. Some I understand and fear. A few-perhaps more than I know-I have followed as far as they have led; and some are still moving" (396).
-We don't receive just one call in life, but many. We seemed overwhelmed with them when we are younger and trying to decide what to be. These callings can offer a number of possibilities and purposes using our talents and gifts as Kant says. Harding's story shows us just that and also that our callings will take us on a journey if we follow them. Yet, we shouldn't go on this journey alone. We need to have God as our navigator as we go through these callings in our life.

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"What could a person be, I mean with that kind of major?"...."I would just be myself, I guess"..."Yourself, only smarter" (368).
-Our vocation doesn't define our entire identity. We don't change just because of what we choose to do with our lives. What we choose to do is entirely between us and God. We hope that we have people in our lives who will support us, but if not, it means we have to rely all the more on strength from God.

*As Wells, Heschel, and Sayers all mention, our identity does not solely come from our work. While our vocation plays a role in our identity, our identity comes from God, who is far greater than any vocation could be. Our choices shape us in life, but they do not define us.

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Elizabeth Gaskell "The Life off Charlotte Bronte"

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Elizabeth Gaskell "The Life off Charlotte Bronte"

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"She must not hide her gift in a napkin; it was meant for the use and service of others. In a humble and faithful spirit must she labour to do what is not impossible, or God would not have set her to do it" (322).

- Our gifts and talents have been given by God. He has set us out to use them. Hiding them and not using them would be considered selfish as they  are to be used to serve others. What could we be holding back  from others by keeping our gifts to ourselves?

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Immanuel Kant "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals"

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Immanuel Kant "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals"

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"For as a rational being he necessarily wills that all his faculties should be developed, inasmuch as they are given to him for all sorts of possible purposes" (320).

- It should be a natural thing for us to want to develop our talents. As Dillard says, we need to go after them, to yield to them. Our talents and gifts don't restrict us to one possible vocation, as Kant notes that there are all sorts of possibilities. What matters is that we use our God- given talents and gifts, not hide them as Gaskell says.

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Bill Moyers Interview with Martha Nussbam

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Bill Moyers Interview with Martha Nussbam

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"It's when you are trying to live well, and you deeply care about the things you're trying to do, that the world enters in, in a particularly painful way. It's in that struggle with recalcitrant circumstances that a lot of the value of the moral life comes in" (311).

-In conflict and trials is when we learn the value of a the moral life, a meaningful life. If we didn't give ourselves with a full sense of service, as Schweitzer suggests, we wouldn't have pain or struggles, but we would be stuck living an ordinary life. The Christian can also look at the difficulties as a tool used by God to bring them closer to Him and to make them more like Him.

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"The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting" (301).
-Finding your calling shouldn't be a fight. Go after your interests, plug into it's heartbeat and let it take over.

*This was an interesting discussion in class as many people offered insight on this piece. Dillard uses nature to explain her ideas to her readers. We discussed how the weasel in the story was an opportunist who made a decision on instinct. This is a lesson we can use in life. Dillard is saying that when we find a calling or when we are presented an opportunity, we should go after it. We shouldn't think too long, we should live in choice.

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Gilbert Meilander "Friendship and Vocation"

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Gilbert Meilander "Friendship and Vocation"

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"That Sabbath rest, as it even now recurs in the weekly cycle of Christian life, is already testimony to the fact that work offers no final fulfillment for human existence" (240).
Meilander piggybacks on what Heschel has to say. We need the Sabbath to discover our whole identity. It can't be found in work alone.

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"Labor is not only the destiny of man; it is endowed with divine dignity" (220).
- We were made by God to work. It's absolutely part of our identity. We shouldn't look at work as just our destiny, as that word has strayed from real meaning. We should look as it as something that God has endowed us with, a task with high importance to our maker.

Yet, work does not contain our whole identity. We have a great need for the Sabbath.
"What would be a world with Sabbath? It would be a world that knew only itself or God distorted as a thing or the abyss separating Him from the world; a world without the vision of a window in eternity that opens into time" (218).
-The Sabbath is a day when we get to look beyond work, beyond ourselves, and beyond this world. We get to know the One who made us and we get to look at things from an eternal perspective, which shows us what's really important to us. This, a step stated also in H.G. Wells piece, is crucial in finding our full identity.

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"Part of leading a life that matters involves attaining clarity about what finally matters to us, not simply about what we value and cherish but also about what we regard as the sources of ourselves" (201).

-To lead a life that matters, we need to know what we hold near and dear to us, but knowing what makes up our identity, what makes us, us is just as important.

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"To regard work as a calling is to suggest that we live to work, that our work is of central significance for our person" (237).

- Work does play a huge role in our identity. What we do often becomes tacked on to who we are. "She's a nurse, she's a teacher." Sayers believes work should be for God, a point that Heschel also makes. Our identity should come from God, not the world. If our work is for God, then it makes sense that our identity is shaped by our work.

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Mary Catherine Bateson "Composing a Life Story"

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Mary Catherine Bateson "Composing a Life Story"

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"If we become skilled in telling stories to ourselves about ourselves, we will be more likely to lead actual lives that matter" (460).
-Each choice we make can be represented by a stroke of paint, or by a note in a song. Our choices that we make as we grow older can turn our lives into something beautiful and artistic.
-Living lives that matter starts within ourselves. We must believe it first. What matters is that we feel our lives have importance.

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Therese of Lisieux was a woman who followed the words of Schweitzer. She found value in every activity and circumstance, including in sickness and trials.

Instead of questioning if certain lives had more meaning than others, she believed, and died saying that "love alone matters" (162).

*All lives are meaningful, and our mission is to love God. In Days essay, "meaning" means leading people to God. In class, we also discussed how our 'eternal life' doesn't actually begin after our death, but it has already begun. The way we live here on Earth is determining out eternal life: whether we see Heaven or Hell, for one example.

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The Iliad is a story that we can relate too. We can  understand the pressure of the decision Achilles faces regarding what will be the most meaningful choice. It's hard to know, but the previous writings show us that meaning lies in our actions, allowing us to be free to make the choice we feel we can give our all to.

*Homer's idea of meaning varies depending on what you call meaningful.

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Aristotle holds a belief similar to Bateson stating that "we must be self-lovers" (130). Yet he also recognizes along with Schweitzer that full service is necessary for a meaningful life, following the previous quote with "but in the way the many are, we ought not to be" (130). To live a life with the fullest extent of meaning, we must love ourselves, but also give ourselves to others in an act of love, which is what mattered most to Therese.

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"We are members of one body. but differentiated members, each with his own vocation" (125).
-We're all created in God's image, but every life is a little different. We need all different types to  make up the body, but the body isn't at it's fullest potential unless all the parts are doing their work. This concept ties into Schweitzer below. However, the body cannot live without some parts, such as the heart, so they do have a greater importance.

*As discussed in class, Lewis believes that everyone has a calling that makes us meaningful. He believes in "finding your purpose" in life and being where God sends you. I think this is something all of us have at least started to do since we came to college. A huge part of life is figuring out who you are and who you want to become, and being at a Christian college, we also are able to learn about who we are to Christ.

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"The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung understandable and useful in people's lives."

(https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/home.htm?bhcp=1)

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Def.: a nine-sided figure used in a particular system of analysis to represent the spectrum of possible personality types (dictionary.com)

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Do My Natural Talents Impose Special Obligations on the Kind of Life I Lead?

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Do My Natural Talents Impose Special Obligations on the Kind of Life I Lead?

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Listen to Your Life? The Concern of Vocation

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Listen to Your Life? The Concern of Vocation

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Meaningful Lives: Are Some More So Than Others?

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Meaningful Lives: Are Some More So Than Others?