Second Thought for the Day. Whoa, I'm on a roll.

My last post may have seemed like one big advertisement, but I promise, I just got a little excited about all these powerful teachings I've been hearing!

Here, now, is my second group of thoughts for today.

I believe it wouldn't be a stretch to come to a conclusion right here and now about college. I know, I know, I'm only about seven weeks in, but here's the deal.

There are many, many subjects you study. You might be in a class about politics, but you'll talk about the global food crisis. You can imagine how many subjects my Suburban/Urban America class has broached.

I know I'm new at this, but it seems to me that the point of studying these problems is two (well, maybe three)-fold. 1) to understand more about the world around you. 2) to identify how they affect you in your own life. and my main thought, number 3) To figure out how maybe we could solve the problem. I mean, who wants to look at (let alone spend thousands of dollars to hear about) a problem and then say "oh well, that's a doozy of a problem. Too bad for the world." Uhhhhhhhhh.

So whenever I look at, or read about, or listen to a lecture about these problems, the wheels of my mind get a'turnin'. They kind of creak out of stillness with this sort of thought: "hmmm...this is a problem. There should be an answer to this problem. I wonder what the answer is..." and then get a good roll started with something like "what if this person changed the way they thought..." See now, this sort of thought only lasts a second or two as it quickly tumbles into: "well, what would the Bible say about how this person could change the way they think?" Which, in turn leads to full speed ahead, race-winning pace thinking that simply goes like this: "They could get SAVED!" It's brilliant. No really, I promise, it's brilliant. And I can say that because I didn't think of it.

It all comes back to Jesus. I dare say there will never be a problem where you can leave God out of the solution. You got a global Food Crisis? Jesus has a plan to come back and establish perfect justice across the world. You got hatred across racial lines? When invited in, Jesus changes everything about the way a person thinks and makes him able to think more highly of his neighbor than of himself. You got a complicated Calculus problem? MAN, God is brilliant, and guess what? He's even orderly in the way He created everything! You know how I know? Math works!

Whenever we step out: into our classrooms, into our workplaces, into our grocery stores, into our pizza parlors, we have to step out with our feet strapped with the readiness that comes from the Gospel of Peace. Glue the Bible to everything you do. Everything. At no point in time will you EVER be going too far by applying the Bible to what you're facing or thinking about. In fact, you're in big trouble if you ever try to separate yourself, your thinking, or your problem-solving from the absolute truth.

Afraid of being a "Bible-thumper"? Knock that fear right out of your head: it's true, you are called to speak in love with grace and gentleness, but you are never, ever, ever called to separate that speech from the Truth. Back-door discipleship -- it's really great, you should try it if you haven't already. You can speak Biblical truths without even saying they're from the Bible! Bit by bit, you'll be speaking truth to deaf ears around you and, the truth will begin setting them free and eventually they'll want to know where (ahem...from WHOM) you get all this truth that makes up a pretty wild way of living. Don't be afraid! Be bold with the fact that you know the answer. Really, it's not prideful to say the way of the Bible, the road that by God's grace you are walking on, is the only way. Because it is. It's the only way, and you don't have any time to waste being afraid that you'll offend people.

Because guess what? No matter how much this world rails against it, what the Bible says is still true, and what it says is going to happen is still going to happen. "When the saints come marching in, I wanna be in the number..." Imagine yourself dumped in the middle of the ocean with a lifeboat, except the people you're with think they can make it to the African coast on their own, just swimming. Are you gonna bail the lifeboat, just because people don't think it's cool? No way! You're going to call to them, and tell them the truth, that the only way they're going to survive is to get in the lifeboat with you. It really is that serious. That person, whoever they may be, that you talk to tomorrow is probably headed to eternal misery, because they don't know what Jesus did for them on that cross.

Maybe you should tell them.