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Four Ways Prayer Can Help Guide You Through CollegeIn college, s.docx
- 1. Four Ways Prayer Can Help Guide You Through College In college, so much is at stake. Earning a degree provides opportunities to learn about yourself, the world, and your place in God's plan. At once, the need for a life guided by prayer becomes more urgent, but you find yourself with seemingly less time to devote to feeding yourself spiritually. So when the rigors of class threaten to rob you of the peace of bended knees, remember these four ways prayer can help guide you through college. 1. Find God's Career for You In college, pray that God will lead you to the calling He's chosen for you. Whether you're leaving mom and dad's house for the first time or pursuing a second career, you should devote time in college to discerning what God has planned for you. Sorting through the possibilities for meaningful work and a meaningful life requires you to be rooted in God's leadership. How will you know where God means for you to be without your asking Him...every day? For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11. 2. Manage the Stresses of College Life In college, pray for God's peace. Maybe you're juggling life in a new city, countless new friends and ways to find fun, a roster of engaging coursework, and questions about how your life will speak to a broken world. Or maybe you're juggling a job, children, and a marriage while finding time for that online college course. In either case, college will bring new stresses along with new opportunities. And only God's peace found through prayer can restore your soul. When you feel as though you don't have the strength to deliver all that college asks of you, remember: you don't need to rely on your own strength – you may rely on God's.
- 2. 3. Draw Near to God's People In college, pray that God leads you to people who will draw you closer to Him and His purposes for you. Your college relationships are among the most important you'll form in your life. To make the most of the time spent earning your degree, you'll need a team of colleagues and mentors to help you see clearly where God is leading you, to lift you up when you need a lift. But in addition to emotional support, the relationships you make in college can greatly affect your career. Your college connections can lead you to opportunities you may never have dreamed possible. Both professors and fellow students can open doors and make introductions that will change your life. God knows your every need as well as where in the world you could be of the most use. Have faith that God has chosen those who will enlighten and lead you while you pursue your education. Pray that you find those people. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. Matthew 18:20. 4. Set Your Heart on Fire In college, pray for passion. Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." Your college experience, whether on campus or online, should not break your spirit, but rather fill your soul. The world aches for loving Christian leaders to come to its aide, and the right college will not only equip you to meet the world's needs, but also fuel your passion to serve. No matter how deep the wound you mean to heal, no matter how high the mountain you mean to climb, no matter how cynical the doubt you mean to erase, you will find no greater tool in your ministry than a heart set afire in prayer. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you
- 3. always, to the very end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20. Four Ways Prayer Can Help Guide You Through College In college, so much is at stake. Earning a degree provides opportunities to learn about yourself, the world, and your place in
- 15. opportunities you may never have Today I would like to talk about the rule of saint Benedict. This rule was written for Christians but I think it is also a really good life guide for non-religion people. This rule is called “a little rule for beginners”. I like its idea of balancing prayer life and everyday life, and finding the god and meanings of life through living in a normal life. I am not a religion person and I thought all the religions rules are very rigid and harsh. For example, I know Muslim needs to pray many times a day. There are also very rigid rules for Muslim women. They need to cover their bodies and faces with black robe. For Buddhism in China, they also many harsh rules. They cannot eat any meat includes eggs and fishes. They cannot be married or have any sexual or love relationship with women. (Well, it is interesting to find most of rules are for men. All women need to do is to follow, or they just ignore women at all.) There were not a lot Christians around when I grow up, so I am not familiar with the rules of Christians. I imagined it is also harsh and rigid. But after reading this article, I feel not only this rule is acceptable, but it also can give non-religions people a hint of how they can live a meaningful life. There are somethings in the rule I really agreed and also somethings I feel need to be updated. I like Benedict said his rule is “nothing harsh, nothing burdensome”. He did not give his followers a lot of unreasonable and weird practices. Instead, he asked his followers to seek god in the ordinary circumstances of everyday life. I like this rule because for human, the essential of life is not finding the god but make a living. Even for some people, finding god is the primary thing in their life, they have to have a life first. They need to make a living and feed themselves
- 16. firstly. This rule is really realistic. It encourages people to make a good living, and it is not only useful for Christians, it is also a good advice for all the human. We want our life to be meaningful. Firstly, we need to make a good life. We need to work hard, and study hard. We need to do our best. The rule also asked his followers to balance their prayer and work. It is not asking followers to take most of their time to prayer, but to reflect themselves during the work. I like it because spending plenty of time in prayer is wasting time to me. With all those times, people can do more things and create more values. It is also a good guidance for non-religious people. We all need to balance our life with work, study, playing or connecting with others. This balance is needed in my college life. There’s a rule said, in college, one can only have two among enough sleep, good grades, and social life. I do not feel I can only have two of three, but it is true that putting too much energy in one will lessen the existence of two other ones and it is bad for our life. Therefore, learn to balance these three things is a big lesson in college. It is also a life-long problem. When I start working, how to balance time between working and family is essential to my life. Think about it, if I work all day and have little connection with my wife and children, they might leave me. My girlfriend is very needy. I need to be around her. However, if I put too much energy in family and not working hard, I might get fired or I just cannot be promoted. If I cannot feed the family, my wife can also leave me. Thus, having a balance life is very important. Community is important in Benedict’s rule, but I do not like the idea of keep living in the same place and never move. It may have good meaning in the ancient time, but in this era, we cannot be trapped in the same place. We need to travel to see more and learn more, and reflect about our life in the traveling. Today I would
- 27. not only useful for Christians, it is also a good advice for all the human. We want our life to be I have read chapter 5, Humility. In this chapter, the author talks about how people need humility to achieve their goals. I like what he said in the book, “A well-honed sense of humility -- an honest acknowledgement of our many weaknesses and flaws -- can make a major differences. I think people all have their weaknesses and flaws. They can be fetal to people’s goal. As the author said in previous chapter, people need a find their desire and focus on it. It is a good start to achieve the calling. However, people’s weaknesses and flaws can destroy the hard working. For myself, I want to be a good lawyer and a good lawyer needs to have the ability to communicate with people. A good lawyer needs to have the ability to get others’ trust through talking. Yet I have difficulty to communicate with people. I do not like to
- 28. meet new people and I have a hard time to look nice. I feel it is awkward to chat with someone I barely know. I also feel fear when some stranger talk to me first. I do not know what to say, how to act. Obviously, my weakness can kill my dream being a lawyer. I tell myself that I need to change. I start to talk to strangers. At first, I feel I am so stupid and I feel so humiliated. I feel like everyone is laughing at me. But I need to continue. I know I can have improve soon or later. I need to take the humility and transfer is to my driving forces. So far, I still feel uncomfortable to talk to strangers, but I will still talk to them. I continue challenge myself and make progress. I think humility is a important part in our life. When we feel humility, it means we have weaknesses. What we need to do is not avoid its present, but to face it, overcome it and then we can be a better person and achieve our goals. Chapter 6 talks about community. Firstly, I do not understand hoe community helps with our personal calling, but later, I agree with the author that community is important in our calling. We cannot live along in this world. We need accompanies and we need love from other people. I can not imagine a world without my parents, my girlfriend and my friends. If they are not exist any more, I feel like there’s no meaning of my life. I love my family and my friends a lot. I do not know what my calling is but I know whatever it is, I will take care of my family and friends in my entire life. The other thing in the chapter I really agree with is that we should take care of our family not only by money. I think money is important in our life but money is not the most important thing. I cannot just sending money to my parents and say I take good care of them. I need to consider what they really need. I need to spend time with them, care about their health and ensure they are in a good mood. That is how we should take care of people we love. Everyone’s calling is decided by oneself, but it does not mean that community is unrelated to people’s calling. When we find
- 29. our calling, our desire, we want to focus on it and working for it. We also overcome many weaknesses through time, but we cannot give ourselves a objective judgment of how are we doing. Yet the community can give us comments and reviews. People around us can help us to improve. In my first English writing class, I wrote my first five pages paper in English. I remember I was so happy and satisfied after I finished. I thought it was the best paper I read it again and again and I like it a lot. I thought I can get a A plus, but I got a B. My professor gave me comments and told me where I can improve. I was sad that I got a B but I also feel relieved because I do not want to be an arrogant person. I was glad that someone tell me where I did wrong and pull me out of the unrealistic self-appreciation. The TED talk discusses about résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. According to David Brooks, résumé virtues are those virtues you put in your résumé and those skills can help you getting external success like money. Eulogy virtues are those good qualities in your blood and in your nature, which can help you getting internal fulfillment. David thinks we should focus on our eulogy virtues and they are more important to us. I agree with him that we do have two sides in our nature that one side is more creative and ambitious. It always seeks the outside success. The other side is humbler, and feels we all have sins and we need to be better persons. I agree with him because I feel my two sides are fighting all the times. Everyone has limited time and time is precise. We need to spend it in a right way. But do we spend it on building useful skills or do we spend it on having more internal good qualities? Having skills can help us be more competitive in the market and we can have opportunity to earn more money and live a better material life. This is what our society encourage us to pursue
- 30. and this is way that most of us are spending our time on. Is it wrong? I agree that becoming a better person and have good personalities are important to people, but I don’t think seeking outside success is a wrong way to spend our precise time. For many people, they just have to focus on their material goods. They are too poor and too unsecure to care about internal goods. I have been to a small, far village in the Southwest of China. That village, I do not know its name, is so far away from city. They only have hundreds of people and most of them are children and the elders. The young people all go to big cities to work. I went to there for visiting. It is a beautiful village with mountains, rivers, waterfalls, animals etc. but it was so poor. You can pay them 3 dollars a day staying their home and having meals and they are very welcome. Children asked me things outside the village, outside the mountain. They want that kind of life that has pretty clothes, eat different foods or has a ride on a car. They ask me what they need to do to leave that small village and they would do it to change their life. There was a proverb in China that I transfer it as “you need enough foods in your house to be polite and kind”. Those children, their basic needs like foods and clothes cannot be satisfied. How dare someone talks to them about inner consistency and strength. It would be ridiculous to talk to a child in a war about love and peace. Their basic need is to survive. I am not saying that we do not need inner consistency and strength. In fact, I think it is very important to human beings. Human are human because we know what is right and what is wrong. We know we should do and what we not do. We can think and we know our wrongfulness. I think the Adam II is asking us to identify our sin and change it to becoming a better person. Once our basic needs are satisfied, we can then seek for inner fulfilment. We have listen to our heart: what do we really want and truly need. We need to not allow the noisy world to influence us. Despite the ambitious of conquering the world, despite the desire of money and power, what do you really want.
- 31. What makes you happy and what makes you feel accomplished? I ask myself that, and my answer is love: people who I love and people who love me. I want to treat them well, my parents, my siblings, my girlfriend, my friends. They are so important to me and I do not want them to be hurt. I want to do whatever I can do to help them, to take care of them and to love them with all my heart. The TED talk discusses about r é sum é virtues and the eulogy virtues. According to David Brooks, r é sum é virtues are those virtues
- 41. village with mountains, rivers, waterfalls, animals etc. but it was so poor. You can pay them 3 dollars a day staying their home and having Reflection In the introduction, the author tells a story about his schoolmate Hurley. Hurley was a very popular since he was in basketball team and he was also good in academic works too. The author feels unfair that Hurley has so many gifts but he does not. He asks his uncle why god make people differently and unfairly. His uncle’s answer make me think a lot. His uncle said to him that people all have their different gifts from god. God is fair to everyone but he just gives different people different gifts. Everyone has his special gift
- 42. and one needs to find it and develop it. At one hand, I think he is right that people all have their gifts and everyone can do everything. However, in the other hand, I think the world is built unfair whether it is built by god or by nature. I have a friend when I was in elementary school who was a “bad student” or being stupid. In China, we only care about people’s grades so being a bad student means having bad grades. He was a cute little guy, but he just could not understand anything teacher said. I tutored him, but he still could not understand those math problems even though I repeat many times. I wondered why he can be so stupid on academic works. However, he is so good at music stuff. He can play piano, guitar, Morin Khuur etc. and he can sing very well. Now I just think some people do not like to study or they do not have the “gift” to be a good student, but it does not mean they do not have any gift or they cannot do anything good. I think we all have our special gifts, but some gifts can be recognized as gifts and some cannot. In this world now, the main stream idea of success is to have money. Having how much money is the only thing people cares when judging a person. It seems whatever we do is to making money. We become a good student and go to college; we find a good job which we might do not like and earn as much money we can. People who have traits or gifts that can help them making money, are called that they have gifts. Some people, who seems they do not have any gift which can help them making money, are called that they do not have any gifts. Like my friend, people think he is stupid because he cannot be a good student, even though he has other gifts about music. We are all judged by the main stream ideas and whether we have gifts or not is also judged by it. The other thing I am thinking is that even though people all have gifts, many of them do not have time or money or resources to develop. Back to my friend, he can develop his skills in music because his parents are rich enough to support him study and buy all those instruments. People who also have
- 43. gifts in music but do not have resources like money or time cannot develop their gifts and they will just be a normal person. I want to say the world is unfair. Some people are born rich, some are born poor; some people are born with high IQ, some are not; some people are born in peaceful, developed country, some are born in war. The world is never a fair place. We cannot change our parents or our body, but we can change our minds. We can study hard and work hard. We can find our calling thought hard working and we can help others to change their bad situations. I feel lucky all I have now. There are many people have much more than me, money, beauty, intelligence… But I do not be jealous of them. I wants to work hard to achieve what I want. There are also many people have less than me. I do not despise them or feel I am in a higher hierarchy than them. They may unlucky, but we all equal in soul. I admire people who change their bad situation by themselves and I’d like to help them if I have abilities to help them. The world may unfair, but we still need to work hard to find our callings, things we like to do and things we meant to do. Reflection In the introduction, the author tells a story about his schoolmate Hurley. Hurley