Page 13 - WOTS_Issue_69

SYSTEM FAILURE but now that you’re already into the second semester of
school, you can’t say for certain that you’re the same
Browsing
person you used to be. Going to your first party,
It all begins with browsing, doesn't it? When you sit down compromising long-held relational guidelines, and joining
at a computer to figure things out, you inevitably will press yet another student organization has seemed more like
a few keys and surf a few sites until you gain enough college benchmarks than your idea, really. Whether
confidence and knowledge to know what you’re looking consciously or not, you have begun to push God out of the
for. So too with the college experience. Uneasy at first, you picture. You have already decided you know best when it
move in, make a few friends, and experience new things. comes to life direction, not God. You’ve stopped reading
Pretty soon you're going places and doing things you've your Bible; all the warnings in it obviously don’t apply to
never done before. Some of them are things to be proud you. All the advice it offers, you’re already too wise to
of, while others are quite shameful. If that’s you and follow. To make a long story short, your relationship with
you’re concerned about what God thinks of you nowadays, God has grown cold and stale. The truth is, you can serve
it can be easy to convince yourself that it’s okay that God, or whatever else it is that you’re distracted with, but
things have changed. After all, you’ve grown up a lot, and not both. "No one can serve two masters. Either you will
the real world has no place for naivety. College is meant hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to
for experiencing and experimenting. It’s the chance to try the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God
on some new identities and figure out what fits. There are and money."

“When you allow yourself to stop Virus

for a minute and think, you know Sometimes, despite the best intentions and research you
do before downloading something, you can end up
life shouldn’t be this chaotic and downloading a spammy, virus-y item anyway. That’s how
empty all at once.” “good” or “temporary” experiences can end so badly.
Whatever it is that you have downloaded can gain
complete control over your life and cause total spiritual
deprivation. All decisions required of you are built around
so many different options to choose from. You may have
given yourself entirely over to your studies, or you may whatever it is you have given yourself to. You do not have
have made your way into the party scene. You could be any option anymore. Maybe you are still tricking yourself
dating as many people as possible, or at least dabbling into thinking that you do, and that you just always choose
with a few. You’ve made your choices. And that is where this thing because you like it. But in reality, whatever it is
that you’ve pursued and thought would bring you
the danger is. Pursuing normal things like education, a
career and a relationship, is faulty at best when it’s done fulfillment and a sense of purpose is actually sucking the
life out of you. You’re feeling emptier than ever when your
apart from God.
whole goal was to find fulfillment and your place in this
Quite simply, you’re restless, and you don’t understand world. It’s ironic that what started out as a journey to
why you are when you have things you only dreamed enjoy the freedom of finding yourself has led to total
captivity and a deeper disquiet than ever before.
about as a kid. This aching for something that seems
forever elusive is because God created you and knows you
better than you know yourself. Following your own nose The Reset
because you “got this,” will never satisfy what you’re Diagnosis
longing for. Following Him is actually the sanest thing you Have you ever been startled awake from a dead sleep?
could ever do. You are so shaken up it takes you a few minutes to get
your bearings. That is kind of what it is like when God
Downloads grabs ahold of us. He shakes us awake to realize what a
When you download something from an email attachment
mess we have gotten ourselves into. Now, if God has ever
or a font from off a free site somewhere, you are brought you to this point, even if it is a painful and
committing to it. In order to hit the download button, you humiliating experience, it’s something to be forever
have had to make the decision to trust its source before thankful for. Without God allowing you to come to this
you really know what you’re getting. The hazy space realization, you would be stuck on this wandering road for
between “trying things out” and “just doing my Saturday the rest of your life, not knowing there is something
thing” is eerily similar. Usually this process begins slowly, different for you. The temporary pain of realization is