Spring Break just ended. Now I have only a few weeks left until my senior year of high school.

Thats scary. Then after high school, theres a pretty clear plan: go to college for four years. But
thats as far as Ive gotten in my life plan. I could imagine a life where I graduate high school
with a great GPA, get through college having had the time of my life and being thoroughly
prepared for a good job. Get a great job. But then what? Work for 40 years, visit family
gatherings, retire, then die. That sounds dreadful. How could I live such a life in which anything I
do has no impact on anyone significant? How could I waste away my years doing the norm,
being comfortable, letting life take me along, when I look back at these heroes from the past, of
Bonhoeffer, of Peter, of Martin Luther, even of my Huguenot ancestors, who struggled, and
fought for life, and paid back their God who paid for them the ultimate and unrequitable price. I
cant go all my life with a debt on my shoulders, even though the said debt has already been
forgiven. Its a matter of honor for me.
When I think to the future, I see two paths. There is the one path that I have had in my head
since I was young, of going to the hardest college, studying engineering, working for NASA,
sending a mission to space, becoming super rich, and retiring in luxury. But since Ive become a
Christian, I look at that path and see that every breath of that life is not serving the Lord (psalm
something). Every breath of that life is trying to scuba dive in the kiddy pool, trying to dig the
foundation for a house with a spoon, trying to find security through myself, through a deathly,
mortal human. And that seems fun. It seems independent. Seems assured.
But then I have to question myself. Why scuba dive in the pool when you have the ocean? Why
use a spoon when you have a mechanical digger? (Unless, of course, you are Tom Sawyer).
Why rely on yourself when the omnipotent and loving creator of the universe is standing behind
your back, as your mentor and protector, and the one who will take every effort you make, every
breath you breathe, and put it into good use for an eternal and (I hate to say meaningful here,
for the sense of importance I am trying to convey holds significantly more weight than a word
could ever give) meaningful cause. With my version of life, I would live and then die and my life
would be that. Thats all.
You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment
to you; at best, each of us is but a breath, Psalm 39:5
And I guess for some people thats okay. Thats the reason why they feel its okay to desecrate
their bodies and their minds, because in the end for them, it is a continually decaying body
anyway. Why take special care of something that is already broken? Use the most of it while
you can and then when it comes time, discard it and be done with.
But not for me. I have special conviction that the saving power of Christ has taken my broken
self and renewed it through him, that now I have the power and the spirit within my to go
through the next 80 years with power and influence, backed up by an all powerful God who will
make whatever path I choose matter. I know that God will give me a path, that I dont have to
work to find out what I am supposed to do in life. God will put it in front of me. I so now to
prepare for that, and to come into that as purely and as ready as I can, will maintain conviction

in morality, even in this time when it seems consequences wont matter, where the norm is to
destroy your soul, because, if you havent confessed to eternal life, why worry about a soul
which would be useless?
Its hard to think about his, however, because of the forgiving power of Christ. You can sin and
lie and do all of these terrible things, and then have a penitent thief moment, where in the final
moments of your life ask for forgiven, your blackened soul is wiped clean, and you get to enjoy
paradise. Singing in church when I was younger, I always loved the song that talked about a
crimson robe being washed pure white through the healing power of God, I guess because of
the imagery that it creates. And so naturally I also love the feeling, when you do something
wrong and the you come before God and he forgives you. Its powerful. Thats the moment that
made me follow Christ in the first place. But that feeling is not for us who have already been
saved. It is not made for those who do not need it. We have another form, renewing salvation,
that is for the continuing Christian life. The hard thing about living life as an early-on Christian,
is that we cant accept that we sin and then we go to God and then we sin, and so on and so
forth. Of course, we will sin and when we go to God he will forgive us, but because of Gods
expectations, or rather, the expectation we believe he has (because I have no doubt that God
expects us to sin continually), our knowledge of Christ implies that we must attempt not to sin, in
the strive to live a Christlike life.
So lately, Ive found myself denying forgiveness, awaiting that big moment that I experienced
five years ago where the mass clump of my sins was suddenly lifted from my shoulders. In real
life, it doesnt happen that way, at least not as I have experienced it. But I know there must be a
way to hold onto the church retreat feeling1, or maybe we are not meant to feel that everyday.
Though I believe that in those moments, you have abandoned life and opened your entire self
up to the holy spirit. So I think thats what this project has really been about. Trying to find the
church retreat feeling in everyday life. It may not be as powerful as the mountaintop, but there is
a way to leave your life behind and follow God, while still living in the world. It can be through
fellowship, through mentorship, through prayer, by denying the world your body and mind, or
through complete focus through the Jesuslense2, that we can attain a life surrounded by the
spirit. For all the years of our life.

1 church retreat feeling- I am referring to the moment after you have spent an entire weekend devoted to
God, surrounded by Christians, and you can feel the power of the holy spirit where you walk around.
Separated from society and all the stress and baggage you have in the world, up on the hill its easier to
devote your life to God and to feel that you can make an infinite amount of promises and that from then
on your life will change. But then you come down into the valley and all the problems come back, leaving
you with only the faint whisp of the devotion you felt on the mountain top.
2 Jesuslense- the idea of looking at the world through Jesus, not necessarily from his point of view, but in
the case that everythings anyone does or ever will do is because of him, and practicing every action you
do for the purpose of living like Jesus