Run With Purpose

I LOVE COLLEGE. I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT I'M HERE.

I feel like this whole experience is a dream... I always thought I was made for high school. I loved everything about high school. The teachers, the administrators, the events, the dances, the mud fights... I had the greatest high school experience, and I would defend that to my death. I dont think I would go back and change a single thing if I was given the opportunity. I built relationships in that high school that I know will stick with me throughout life, relationships that prepared me for the future.. relationships that taught me to always stay "childlike" in my faith. If anything, I was definitely blessed with shaking the right hands at the right time.

Now I'm in college, and honestly... Its just about the exact same. I still have teachers that I could really love, I still have events to attend... fun surrounds me in every direction I turn. I still have so many of the same opportunities, but on a bigger scale. My friendships have expanded... new friends galore :)

The only difference is this: I dont have my parents to tell me what to do and when do it... They dont wake me up before church and wait for me while I'm getting ready. I'm on my own. I have the opportunity to find a family that I'm unfamiliar with... its uncomfortable, but it's so rewarding. I've never been so far out of my comfort zone, but I couldn't be more blessed. I've been pushed out of the nest, and I'm beginning to spread my wings.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that for the last 18 years my parents have been raising me for this very time... to go out and be who I am destined and created to be. To love and to be loved.

I went to a church called Antioch yesterday, and I completely fell in love with it. I loved the way God spoke through the pastor, Chris. The sermon was about the parable of the sower and the lesson of "planting seeds". He also spoke from Acts 17 where Paul explains that from one man came every nation, and God has already decided when each of us would rise and fall. He knew that I would come to OU and He knew I would be a Theta and He knew I would be involved in different organizations and he knows the things that I dont even know yet... He ordained every second of my life, before he even created the world.

For in Him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17:28

It was said of David that he was a man after God's own heart... What a reputation. I can only hope that someday someone will say that I was a woman after Gods own heart... In Psalm 27 David says "The one thing I ask is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life."

That was the one thing he desired. To constantly be in the Throne Room. Thats it.

He didnt ask for anything else. Not a companion or a house or a family or a job or money or whatever else they had back in his day... He just wanted to be before the Lord all the days of his life.

4 years. If that.

I have four years to walk this campus. To love these people. To pour into these lives. To learn from these professors. To teach these professors. To grow in this city. To plant seeds here. To water seeds here. To reap harvest here.

The next four years are a blank canvas. Every decision I make is like a paint stroke that ultimately paints a picture. Today is the beginning.

I want to run hard and fast after God. I want to spend every day of my life before God in His throne room. I want my words and my actions and my decisions and my thoughts to make Jesus famous...

So I run with purpose in every step... 1 Corinthians 9:26

Wherever you find yourself today, tomorrow... You are beginning a new day. It's a new start. A fresh start. Run hard and fast... He has ordained your every move, your every breath. Never forget that you are called and equipped. Even if you're not qualified, you're called! Let God make up the rest, and he will... He loves you, so much. He watches over you and laughs at the silly things you do and say.

You are never alone.