Tracing the Sunbeam

Today is Thursday. I usually prefer to post on Tuesdays, or Wednesdays depending on the week. This week, however, I arrived to Tuesday and I didn't have anything to write about. At least not anything prepared, and trust me, you don't want to read my stuff until it's prepared. So I have decided to expand on the purpose of this blog.

As mentioned in the nebulous "about me" section, I just started my freshman year of college. I came from a summer of staffing for a leadership camp in the South East of the US, and gained a lot of knowledge about the lengths to which God can stretch His children. Upon my return, I began to realize that through this sanctification process, God was showing me how abundantly full life can be. That that's how it was meant to be (John 10:10). Of course, I wanted to know how this looked practically. I wanted to know how I was supposed to live this life abundant and how I was to pursue it. So I started asking questions.

I am currently sitting in a very busy coffee shop in St. Helena, a town devoted solely to wine, specialty food shops, and consignment clothing boutiques. Driving from Napa, I watched the fog and mist lift to reveal the vineyard-surrounded hills on either side of the road. It is seriously one of the most beautiful drives in the world. In a couple minutes I have my second class of the day, English 120, and then I get to go home and do homework. This is my life- 4 hours of it anyway. And it is here where I ponder the relevance of an abundant life. How does this promise fit into Econ homework, breaks in coffee shops, and drives that leave me wondering how long this tank of gas will last?

As best as I can figure it, we are called to have joy in these day-to-day occurrences. Yes, it's easy to take joy in the big events we like to classify as "life:" births, weddings, anniversaries, deaths,- and on and on it goes. It's the rest of it that makes up our lives, though. The dishes, school, errands, work, conversations. How we react to this daily life is up to us. If we take joy in the object/activity alone, we are forgetting our Maker and simply enjoying the pleasures of this world. However, when we trace that joy back to Christ and put it in Him, we reflect Him. Our joy is no longer in the quickly fading, but in the Eternal.

This is why my blog exists. Because too often I take joy in the fading things of life without remembering exactly that: they fade. It's when I write and share things with people, whether it's a conversation, an email, or a blog, that I fully consider all that God has given and done. As corny as it may sound, it's true. God has given His children so many riches to explore in Himself and has granted us an abundance of ways to do that. Here I am then, practicing tracing "back up the sunbeam to the sun."*

*C.S. Lewis