How to Win in College

Photo by  Louis Hansel  on  Unsplash I realize that I called this blog, How to Win in College, and I really haven’t talked much about college so far. I was wanting to write about things that were relevant to my life in that moment. So I started thinking, how does a college student win? What differentiates a winner and a loser? Is the winner just more successful? Is the winner the one who is more popular? Is the winner just more happy? What makes the loser the loser?   I wanted to win. What I mean when I say that was that I wanted to live for Jesus to the fullest. I wanted to walk in a manner that glorifies God. He’s done so much for me and wanted my life to reflect the goodness of His love. What that meant practically was actually a lot of things. One example was to commit my single years to abstinence. The Bible says: Hebrews 13:4 “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexual...

Photo by  Greg Weaver  on  Unsplash One interesting thing about me is I am a worship leader and I am sort of apprenticing to become a vocational or professional worship leader. I have always had a knack for musical instruments and I was always singing growing up. I taught myself the piano and guitar and I had a small amount of vocal training growing up but I wasn’t necessarily passionate about music. I liked it but I never had a reason to pursue it. When God encountered me during my junior year of high school, it was during a worship night that my church held once a month. I remember God was speaking words to me through the lyrics of the songs being sung. Specifically that God wanted to break every chain in my heart and He had the power and willingness to do so. I was wrecked and before then, I can’t remember ever feeling God’s presence like that before and I grew up in the church!   About three months later, I found myself at an international confe...

Photo by  Vidar Nordli-Mathisen  on  Unsplash I believe that at the beginning of anything is a beautiful time to lay down a foundation. Anytime we begin a new class, we must always start with the foundations of whatever we are learning. Without the foundation of the material, the remaining material would be confusing and our brains wouldn't be able to absorb it. It's because we'd be missing the foundational, base groundwork that comes before all the other steps or building blocks. In the infant stages of my relationship with God, my foundation did not get laid down like it should have so that made it difficult to stick with it when life got tough. I found it extremely easy to get distracted or emotionally fall apart during my first year of college. It's because my foundation in Jesus had not been laid down and I was trying to stand up in my own strength when I was not strong enough to do so. Needless to say,  I was not winning.  Matthew 7...