I spent my four years of high school with my nose in a book. I carried around two Texas Instrument calculators in my purse and if you dug deep enough, you'd probably even find a protractor. If my five pages of college statistics homework looked sloppy, I'd take the time to copy it onto five brand new pieces of paper. On Friday nights, rather than going to football games, I'd stay home and work on papers and experiments that weren't due for several weeks. My classmates chose me as their class brain and "most likely to be rich and famous". In the end, I graduated as the valedictorian of my class with an accumulative grade point average well above 4.0.
When I wasn't busy being a nerd (or complete freak as my fellow classmates would call me), I was showing paint horses on a national level. I did this for two solid years of high school, missing over 20 days each year. (I still have yet to discover how I wasn't considered "truant"). In that time frame, I won over 19 national and world titles with my horse Leroy.
I did all of this and yet I still completely missed the point of high school.
Let me rephrase that…. I completely missed the point of high school as a Christ Follower.
Everyone knew I was a Christ-follower, but I never put down my book or calculator voluntarily to share the love of Christ with a fellow classmate.
You see, my biggest fear was failure. So, consequently, I spent my high school years avoiding failure. However, my biggest fear should have been succeeding at things in life that really don't matter because that is exactly what I did. I wasted my high school years succeeding at things that didn't "build the Kingdom" and missed out on so many opportunities to share Christ to a student body surrounded by darkness.
Simply put, I regret how I spent my high school years. If I could trade in every world title and 4.0 grade point average in return for the ability to say with confidence "I planted seeds of light in a hopeless place" I would in a heartbeat.
I challenge you to reevaluate your life. I hate to admit it, but people who have never experienced the love of God tend to base their judgement of Him off of His followers. We, as Christians, may be the only bible some people read. What do you want them to take away from us? To my non-Christian classmates, because of my actions, the bible seemed to promote selfishness and earthly rewards rather than selflessness and Heaven being the ultimate reward.
Rather then living your life with the goal of creating an impressive "résumé", live your life with the goal of building up God's Kingdom and sharing the Good News with your words and actions. Put down your "book" or "calculator" and get your hands dirty!
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