Danielle Sallade speaks extensively on the lives of college students in her essay, Human Flourishing, particularly on how students view the importance of control over their lives: control of work, control of career, and control of future. Despite our society’s addiction to utter control, looking at the problem from a Christian worldview, I do not think that control is necessarily a good thing. I believe that when God commands us to trust in Him alone, he is asking us to entrust him with not only our spiritual lives, but our professional, personal, and academic lives as well, and this means relinquishing most of that oh-so-important control to Him. In addition to the issue of control, there are many other points where the philosophy typical of college students and that of the Bible disagree. Where the Bible tells us that we should sleep well and rest from our work occasionally, students believe that sleep is overrated. Where the Bible tells us that our value is found in Christ alone, students believe that their value is calculated by the numbers on their tests and the career paths they choose. Where the Bible teaches that success is based on a life lived for God, students believe that success is based on how much money they can make. Clearly, the two philosophies are in direct contention with one another. Faced with this dilemma, a choice between an unbiblical but popular philosophy and a philosophy which is biblical but is undoubtedly harder to live, I would suggest that it is immeasurably better and healthier to live by the Biblical standard of work and study. Although we may not get as much ‘done’ by the typical college standard, we will accomplish infinitely more in God’s eyes if we focus our attention on Him and not our ever-busy schedule. Or work will become meaningful, our education enjoyable, and we can look to our future confident in the knowledge that God oversees it all.
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