Carpe the Kingdom

Towards the end of last semester I began embracing the "carpe college" mentality. Taking advantage of all the opportunities and freedoms that college affords is a great thing, but I allowed this mind set to seep in too far. It began translating as "College is all about me and I am going to do whatever I please." In other words, I began embracing selfishness and forgot my bigger purpose in life: to Carpe the Kingdom.

What does Carpe the Kingdom even mean? It means living a life that is not about you. What?! College is supposed to be all about me...making the grades to obtain a lucrative job, finding a hot wife, looking as fratty as possible... Those are not bad objectives, but carpe the kingdom is about much more. Carpe the Kingdom embraces that if we are in Christ then we are promised eternal life and we are going to live forever with part of our stay on earth and a much larger portion of eternity in Heaven. Let's start living life, realizing that Christ conquered death and if we are in him, death has lost its sting, meaning that it has no authority over us. We are not going to stay six feet under, but be elevated to live with Christ in Heaven forever after we breathe our last breath on this earth.

The opportunity before us is huge. We can make decisions on this earth that echo into eternity. The way we choose to love others, the way we invest our time, and ultimately the way we live out the Gospel are all things that are important to our creator and are things that we should be intentional about because they matter. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that we all become monks and nuns and stay in Bible study all day. In fact, I think that if Jesus was in college today #1 he would be the biggest frat star of all time #2 he would go to a school in the Big 12 (sorry Nebraska...) #3 he would be the life of every party. Following Jesus in college should not make us dull, but we should be the most fascinating people in our communities, clothed with love, humility and compassion.

Be in college, embrace the freedom, take random road trips, put off your term paper until the last night and pull an all nighter, frat hard, make good grades, make better friends, but ultimately embrace the Kingdom. Jesus is calling us to bring His kingdom closer to our universities, roommates, families, teams and fraternity brothers and the only way to do that is to be more about loving God and loving others than ourself.

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are temporary but the things that are unseen are eternal. "

2 Corinthians 4:16-18