I guess this letter was triggered by seeing so many of you over the last couple of weeks during your spring breaks. It is always great to see you at BCC, to talk to some of you, and to hear a bit from you about how things are going. You are all very special to me, the Board of Elders, and to our church. Through the years, BCC has been blessed with many terrific college students, and you are among them.
Recently, it dawned on me that I am way overdue in expressing my admiration for you (and your wonderful parents) in writing. Do you ever do this? Do you ever realize, “Man, I really appreciate this or that about this person but I have never told them so!” That happens to me, especially of the people I’m closest to. I realize that I am very thankful for this quality or that attribute in my wife or my kids, but that I haven’t expressed it to them. This is an oversight on my part, and I want to begin correcting this by writing you guys and gals this simple letter.
Before I begin, I want to remind you that I value your continued education. In my preaching, I will often suggest that education can be a crutch on which are leaned dreams that can only be fulfilled by intimacy with the Lord, not baccalaureate degrees. But I don’t want you to get the impression that I don’t think education is important: an education founded on real wisdom (not available at all colleges or through all professors) has an important place in God’s created order, which we are blessed to explain and explore and superintend, to his great glory and our joy.
First, I want to say that I am grateful for your hearts for the Lord. Many of you have connected with good churches or Christian groups or other believing students and are growing in your relationship with Jesus and that’s the most important thing. I wish I could visit with each one of you and hear how you’ve developed spiritually and meet those with whom you’ve done so. But it’s great that you’ve done this without being harangued or pressured. I pray that this openness to growth will be characteristic of your whole life and in each of its important stages.
Second, let me say that I really admire you. I know that most of you are working hard at your schooling, your family responsibilities, work, and extra-curricular activities. I am proud of you and thank the Lord for a group so diligent. Keep up the good work: these long hours will likely pay off later in your lives, when you may find yourself even busier than you are now ( ! ) though with different responsibilities. In my three years of seminary following college I remember working all night at cleaning a 25,000 square foot office building, being the solo pastor of a church many miles from our home, and completing a heavy load of graduate theological coursework at a rigorous school. I thought my schedule was nuts then, but little did I know what full-time pastoring and becoming a father would be like! So enjoy your busy school life: you are likely to be much busier later in life, but in a different way. Relish these days set aside for this special time of preparation for even bigger things.
Third, let me call attention to the manner in which you have kept clean your relationships with other members of the opposite sex. I know that you may have struggled, and there may be exceptions, and there are undoubtedly lapses of which I am not aware. But, as a group, you are to be commended for setting and maintaining high standards for personal purity. That can be hard, surrounded as you are by a culture that laughs at chastity and disdains holiness. Keep at it: your joy in pleasing the Lord will be magnified for years to come as you move through life without all the heavy emotional baggage packed during years of youthful promiscuity.
If I could, I would like to meet each one of you for coffee and hear more about where you’re headed. Since that’s not always possible, I’d be pleased if you would write and let me know what’s going on in your life and heart. But if we could get together, I would end our time together with a prayer like this one:
“Father, I thank you first of all for yourself, for your Holy Spirit, and for your Son, head of the Church. I thank you for Bear Creek Church, and for our Bear Creek Church college students. Bless, protect and inspire them during these critical years of their lives. Bless them with the joy that comes from the assurance of being known by you; protect them from the temptation to fall for counterfeits of that joy which would distract them or even destroy their usefulness in glorifying you; and inspire them to use their talent and time and energy in creative, life-affirming ways which build your church, strengthen the body, and woo the unbeliever. For this student’s joy and your glory, I pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
As you finish the year, and – some of you – your college career, let me say again that I am thankfully proud of you. Congratulations on achieving another milestone in your walk through life. May you continue to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” (Eph. 4:1)