What Are You Waiting For?

Classes are underway at MIT as students blanketed the campus on Wednesday, September 7^th. My teammate Ashley enjoyed taking pictures of some of the students on their first day. This had me reminiscing on first-day-of-school pictures that were often taken as a youngster. One student at MIT, Elizabeth, was very eager to get to her first class of the day as evidenced by the picture below.

FOCUS Missionary, Sam, finishing out her
soccer career at UConn.

Elizabeth is actually from Columbia, Missouri and attended Hickman High School. It was very nice to find someone in Massachusetts who can understand my roots and Elizabeth and I like to talk about how awesome our home state is. These conversations usually include topics such as Mizzou, Shakespeare’s cups, mutual friends, and how the Tigers are way better (and classier) than the Jayhawks.

Regarding college athletics, I was pleased to spend last Sunday afternoon attending a soccer game with my teammate, Ann. We walked over to Harvard which is only about a 25 minute walk from where we live in Cambridge. The Harvard women were playing UConn, which is where another FOCUS missionary, Sam, will be graduating from in December. She will be serving in Texas as a Varsity Catholic missionary working with the athletes there. It was great to see her missionary leadership coming through on the field. She leads some of the women on her team in prayer and works hard to motivate them throughout the game.

It was quite an experience to be walking around the campus at Harvard. The institution truly exudes an extremely collegiate vibe and I felt a bit more intelligent for the day. Perusing around the campus and exploring the buildings was quite interesting. Being of such rich historical significance, Harvard was definitely an intriguing place to be. I especially delighted in seeing the Harvard Coliseum, which evokes even more history as it mimics the Roman Colosseum. The only difference between the two is that we find college men battling it out on the football field as opposed to gladiators battling it out with some lions.

As a missionary, I have the opportunity to meet new students every day. This often leads to very interesting conversations about life, faith, food, sports, academics, etc. Just this past Friday my teammate, Joey, and I were walking around campus and ended up having conversations with some really great students. Most of the intentional interactions I have with students stem from questions surrounding  life. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself what the meaning or purpose of life is?

I have learned from various people including my FOCUS teammates that no matter what one views in regards to what their life means, faith must be present. It takes faith to believe that Christ died for our sins. It also takes faith to believe that He didn’t. It takes faith to believe in the truth in science and it takes faith to believe in religion. If you find yourself faithless, you aren’t searching for the purpose and meaning of life. And it is finding what we believe in that drives our purpose and our meaning. Some students I met seemed to think that this question would be better answered towards the end of their lives. It is as if when we get older, it will become more important to examine what our meaning is as we naturally approach death with age. However, no one knows the point at which their life on earth will end. And if we wait to find our purpose and meaning, then we could miss out on what true living really means. We could miss out on being fully alive. Our lives can become more, and they can become more at this moment – right now.

Every day I strive to learn more about my faith, so that I have a greater purpose and meaning for living. I challenge you to examine what your purpose is and to start living now. What are you waiting for?