Hello all!

I hope college is going well so far this semester. If you've already had a panic attack as I have, get ready for the rest of it!

Just kidding, but really, if you're stressed already, remember to pray everyday before classes. It's something I've gotten into the habit of doing. It honestly does put one's mind at ease. Aside from stress already building up, I have just turned 19 this last Friday!

19...

It feels no different. Does it ever really? Several times I have felt a difference over the years of aging. I feel like it's easy to do having a birthday so close to the beginning of the year. I can reflect on how I spent the past year and figure out how to better myself. It's really an everyday thing if you really think about it. Everyday, we are working to attain a Christ-like character as Christians, always striving to be better than the day before. It's as true in anything in life, such as practicing in sports, academics or even working out. We as humans are engineered in such a way that we must continually "practice" whatever we wish to get better at. We strive everyday to the goal we have set before us.

Take Philippians 3:12. Paul describes the Christian life as a pursuit, not an entrance point. We continually grow, mature and attain knowledge and wisdom each day. Every second of the days ahead bring us closer and closer to being the person God is making us to be. We have a goal in mind and a journey that will take us there. We have dreams and personal goals as well, which God will no doubt use in our individuality to become more like Christ.

I once watched a video of a man telling a story. His story began with him describing a childhood hero. When asked who his hero was, he gave an unusual answer; his hero was himself when he's twenty. When he turned twenty, his new hero was his thirty-year-old self, and when he reached that age, his forty-year-old self. He was constantly chasing the future as he hoped it would be, taking the steps to get there that he needed to. In the same way, we ought to chase our future selves, and above all, our final selves; the future us that has attained the righteousness of Christ as our own. We ought to run the race of faith with a passion for the Lord, constantly striving towards the prize awaiting us at the end, that on that day, when we come into God's presence, He might say to each of us, "Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the kingdom of Heaven!"

Philippians 3:12 NKJV

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 4:7

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.