Nothing is more desolate than a college campus in summertime. Some of my colleagues relish the time to catch their breath, but for me, the workload doesn’t just s l o w down, it seems to screech to a halt. The heart and vitality, the students, are painfully absent.
And yet, I can live vicariously through the reports from students here involved with Cru (Campus Crusade). As they fan out in every possible direction to help further God’s kingdom on earth, I can participate in their joys and challenges by bringing their requests before the King of Kings. That infuses my summer with purpose.
Our small campus with its totally student-led group is sending out no less than 30 students to, as they say, every continent except one. (As I say, they’re going to every civilized continent.)
Me: “What’s the one continent?”
Student: “Antarctica.”
Given that it is now wintertime in Antarctica, and the only living things there are seals, penguins, and perhaps sled dogs accidentally left behind – not people, I doubt very seriously that it’s a place even on Cru’s far-reaching radar for a future project.
Not all the Cru students are going on summer projects, but ALL of them have an opportunity to grow in their relationship with Christ. ALL of them can be used of God to spread his light and his love to the world around them.
And so can we.
Each of us has a daily choice to make as to how we are going to invest this day. Every morning, we can submit our agendas to the Lord, essentially telling him that we only want to do and to say the things that he wants us to do and to say. We can open ourselves up to the people who cross our paths that day, listening to the Holy Spirit’s whispers. Perhaps they are divine appointments.
Opportunities are always present. We only need to look for them and be willing to follow his lead.
That’s what I tried to convey to the students when I spoke at the last meeting of the school year. (I say tried because I didn’t get up to speak until 10:00 pm – after my bedtime – and I was tied to the mike stand while being blinded by the stage lights, frozen like a deer caught in headlights. I can only pray my crazed look didn’t get in the way.)
That night, I repeated Moses’ Graduating Address that he gave to the class of Israelites about to enter the Promised Land, people on the threshhold of transition.
“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)
The same goes for me. The same goes for you, too. We can choose the fulness of life.
It’s up to us what we make of our summer – of our life. We can choose to make the most of it.