Undergraduate Corner: Surviving Winter Break

On this blog, the first and third Tuesday of each month are dedicated to presenting discussion geared toward undergraduate students, in a series called, "Undergraduate Corner."

The end of the semester is not that far away. In just a few weeks, undergrads all over the country will be packing up their bags, selling back their textbooks, making sure they have that cute lab partner's cell number, and heading home. They'll finally get to sleep (for about 1.5 days straight) in their own bed, eat their favorite meal that their mother prepares (we call ours "Good Chicken"--does that name even need a description?), and spend a few glorious weeks not having to think about Salinger, free-body diagrams, or inelastic demand.

But Christian students may also find it difficult to spend time thinking about God.

Here's the scenario: The Christian college student returns home, and either 1. skips church (understandable given their dire need of sleep) or 2. goes back to their "old church" (is six months ago really that old?) and it simply isn't the same as it used to be (especially if half of their friends from high school aren't there) AND they're hearing the Christmas story which, although powerful, sounds familiar to them and they begin to zone out.

After a very short time, their few weeks of rest have passed, and they return to campus with bellies that are full but souls that are still deflated. And beginning the spring semester (which doesn't even offer the release of football, unless your team is headed to the national championship...) with a deflated soul makes it very long indeed.

So, I'd offer the following advice to Christian students who are just 1.5 months away from winter break:

1. Pick up a Christian book to read over break. I know you don't think that you'll want to read anything, but you might actually find it restful to use your brain on something other than schoolwork. Might I recommend Knowing God by Packer, which has simple language and self-contained chapters, or The Call by Guinness, which just might stir up your motivation to enter the spring semester with a renewed vigor?
2. Stay in touch with Christian friends from school. (Besides your cute lab partner...) Spend some time praying together. Share about what you're reading.
3. Reflect on what you've learned. The end of a college semester is such a rushed time---for students and faculty---such that we rarely have time to think back on what we've learned, how it all relates, how God is showing us His glory in all of it, and how He's using it all to prepare us for a life of service.

What are some suggestions you have for Christian undergrads on their way home?

Undergraduate Corner: Take your rest

On this blog, the first and third Tuesday of each month are dedicated to presenting discussion geared toward undergraduate students, in a series called, "Undergraduate Corner."

If I could give one piece of practical advice to undergraduate students, it would be this: Take your rest.

When God was leading the recently freed Jewish people across the desert and fed them with miraculous bread, He required that they spend six days going out and gathering the bread, but that one out of every seven days they not gather any bread. The idea (at least partly) was to remind them that everything they had was from God, and that they needed to spend time thinking about Him and loving Him so that they trusted Him with the other six days of the week. He also reminded them that even God Himself took a rest after creating the universe.

When Jesus came on the scene, this idea of rest had been turned into a legal requirement so wrought with details and stipulations that one had to do more work to understand & obey the rules than one did the other six days of the week. Jesus tore down this stricture with the statement that humans weren't created for the practice of rest, but that the practice of rest was created for humans. In other words, rest belongs to humans, like so many others of God's gifts.

And so, if f I could give one piece of practical advice to undergraduate students, it would be this: Take your rest. It's your rest that God wants to give to you. When we don't take time to rest, we're not just disobeying God; we're also shortchanging and hurting ourselves.

But it's hard to do that in college! You always have more on the list of things that have to be done, right up until the end of the semester, when you're whisked back home as soon as your last exam is over. Wouldn't it make more sense to get as much done as possible every day so that you can have some peace of mind when you do take a break? What if you set aside a day to rest but on that very day you figure out how to solve that circuits problem that's been daunting you all week?

Figuring out when to rest and when to plow through the work is tricky, and I think the answer is different for each person. Some students may need one day a week completely free from work responsibilities and some may need three sets of 8 hours of rest dispersed throughout the week. But here are a few practical ways that I try to ensure that I'm pursuing a healthy amount of rest; perhaps you'll find them a helpful starting point.

1. When I was in graduate school, I decided not to do any more school work after 9:00 pm---regardless of where I was in the assignment, or how much energy I felt I had, or if I had just entered "the zone" at 8:55 pm. At 9:00 pm, I put the books down and got ready for bed. And do you know what I found out? By getting enough sleep, I was able to actually follow the professor the next day in class, such that I was more effective at the next homework assignment, which meant that I got more sleep, which meant I was able to pay attention better... It's a lovely cycle.
2. I take my "day of rest" from approximately 7:00 pm on Saturday to approximately 7:00 pm on Sunday. I find that worship is so much more meaningful on Sunday morning if I've already had some time of rest beforehand, instead of arriving at church and saying, "Oh, I'm supposed to rest today. Right. I'll get right on that." Also, ending my rest at some point Sunday evening means I have a couple hours to get ready to return to work the next morning.
   
3. While I'm at church, I always have some means of writing down important thoughts (a notepad, the memo app on my phone). It's the nature of academic work that new research ideas or innovative solutions to a problem come in waves and flashes that can't be summoned or put on hold. So, if I have such a wave or flash at church, I quickly write down the thought, and (time permitting) I reason it out for a few minutes to make sure I understand the idea. Then, satisfied, I turn back to worship and rest. (If I don't write down such a thought, it tends to bug me all day.)
4. When I need to skip church, I skip church. I know this sounds horrible, but sometimes on my day of rest I need to, well, rest, such that going to church that day may be more stress than I (or my wife) can handle. Don't get me wrong; I think we need to perceive public worship as a time of rest (and church leaders need to make sure it's structured to be restful), but we also need to understand that public worship each and every week is not a requisite for rest.

What do you think? What have you found to be effective ways to take your rest? How has God met you while you've rested?