SIX Ways to Waste Your Schoolyear

Too often, students really make the most of their schoolyear. They end up having a great time and growing in many ways. This post is to correct that. Don't you want to be miserable for the next nine months? Don't you want to cease any progress in your life? Don't you want to waste your schoolyear? Then this post is for you! Here are six ways that even you can waste your schoolyear:

1. Get your priorities all mixed up
If you really want a great way to waste your year, try mixing up your priorities. Give number one priority to sports, relationships, pleasure, band, clubs, or other good but not incredibly important things. Make sure you really shove the important stuff, like your faith, your family, your future, and your education all the way to the bottom of your priority list. That way you can devote most of your time and energy to things that really don't matter in the big picture. I think you'll find this is a great way to not only waste your schoolyear, but your future as well.

2. Pray only on test days
If you've never tried this in the past, I think you'll really find this way to waste your schoolyear extra successful. Make sure you only pray when you have a crisis in your life or when you think you can use God as your good luck charm before a big test. When things aren't too bad or things are actually going pretty well, do not pray. Because if you really want to make this schoolyear awful, then just use God as your rabbit's foot, your genie in a bottle, or your kind, old grandfather upstairs. Sure, you'll miss out on the joy and privilege of a daily relationship with the Creator of the universe, but when you're looking to waste a schoolyear, who needs that?

3. Don't try hard, not even a bit
Way too often, I hear from students (especially seniors) that they wish they could go back and try harder in their freshman year or the beginning of the schoolyear. Their bad grades that one semester mean they can't get into the college they want or have dragged down their entire GPA. Let me tell you, those are the students that know how to waste a schoolyear. If you want to waste this schoolyear academically and mess up your future, don't try hard, not even a bit. That way you can be lazy and enjoy doing nothing over working hard for your future. And don't stop there; make it really cool to not try hard! That way you can feel better about yourself wasting your time.

4. Find your identity only in what others think of you
This is one of my favorite ways to really mess up a schoolyear and make myself miserable. It's simple: whatever others think of you, that's what you should think of yourself. And if you're an avid social media user, you're already wandering down that path. Don't worry about who you really are, who you are in God's eyes. If people don't like you the way you are, then keep changing until they like you. That way you can find your identity in what they think of you. If that certain boy or girl doesn't want to go out with you, then be miserable! Keep doing things, even if you know it's wrong, until others like you. Base the entirety of who you are on what others think of you, and I guarantee, this schoolyear will be a complete waste.

5. Value relationships over all and friendships not at all
I think this is where many students really find their expertise in wasting their schoolyear. Forget about friends. Put all your time and energy into a boyfriend or girlfriend, with whom you have a very slim chance of spending longer than six months. Value what your boyfriend or girlfiend says over what your friends say. Ditch your friends consistently to hang out with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Don't celebrate your friendships. Don't have your friends' backs. Don't value friendships. Put all your value on your romantic relationships and you can bet you'll do a good job at wasting a schoolyear.

6. Search for joy in the meaningless
Finally, if you really want to waste this schoolyear, spend all of your time searching for joy in the meaningless, temporary things in life. Sure, you could find eternal and deep joy in Christ. You could have a joy in God that persists even in the toughest of times. You could have joy that is unmatched by anything this world offers. But why would you want that when you're trying to waste a schoolyear. If you want to waste this year, keep searching for joy in meaningless things that can offer you joy for an hour or two, or maybe even a day at a time. But don't search for joy in anything that offers more than that. That would make this schoolyear a success, bleh. Waste your schoolyear by searching for joy in all the wrong places.

And there you have it. If you want to really flush this schoolyear down the drain, try those six tactics above. See just how miserable you can be.

Debt Paid vs Debtor

"O praise the One who paid my debt,

And raised this life up from the dead" (Jesus Paid It All)

"O to grace how great a debtor,

Daily I'm constrained to be" (Come, Thou Fount)

Question: Is our debt completely paid or are we forever great debtors?

Answer: Yes.

Let me explain. We must rest in the first sense: our debt is completely paid. We were debtors, but no longer since Christ paid our debt. Created by God to be perfect and sinless, we have rebelled and sinned. This puts us in debt to God in the amount of one eternal death. It is what we owe for our sin. In His grace, God put forth Christ to pay that debt for His children. One debt owed, one debt paid. Jesus paid it all.

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." -Colossians 2:13-14

Let me be clear. The debt is not transferred. It is not like you owe a debt to one credit card company and you transfer the balance to another credit card company. In that circumstance, the debt is paid by another, but only transferred so that you are still in debt. Jesus does not pay a debt to the Father so our debt is now owed to Christ. The payment Christ offers in our place is final and complete. It is out of grace and it is a free gift. To live in an attempt to pay back Christ for the debt He paid for you gives birth to the dangerous "debtor's ethic."

John Piper explains the "debtor's ethic:"

"The debtor's ethic says, Because you have done something good for me, I feel indebted to do something good for you." This impulse is not what gratitude was designed to produce. God meant gratitude to be a spontaneous expression of pleasure in the gift and the good will of another. He did not mean it to be an impulse to return favors. If gratitude is twisted into a sense of debt, it gives birth to the debtor's ethic--and the effect is to nullify grace" (Future Grace, 32)

So before moving on, let us lay the foundation of our debt completely paid so we don't fall into the debilitating lifestyle of trying to pay God back.

But there is a second sense of debt found in the Christian life, and in it we find motivation to live for the glory of Christ. We are daily and significantly indebted to the grace of God. See what Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians:

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." -I Corinthians 15:10

Your debt for sin is completely paid in Christ; but by God's grace, you are what you are, and to that we are forever indebted. Your debt for sin is not transferred; it is canceled. Your debt to grace can never be paid off, but should always be increased as you grow in the grace of God. See the distinction? Praise the One who paid your debt. But then be forever indebted to grace by which you grow in Christ. Debt canceled, debt inreased, praise God for both.

Selfish Humility: The Paradox of Friendship (part 6)

The foundation of Spiritual friendship as selfish humility is a freeing and joyous truth. It should be applied to the Church through teaching, discussion, literature, and leadership. It is valuable to know that deep friendship is not just for those who can put aside their own desires and become completely selfless in relation to others. That would mean that friendship is only for those without any needs and who can ignore their desires. To teach this is to leave the Church without any hope for friendship. Instead, friendship finds its power by God’s grace in that we fulfill one another’s needs and desires. We should teach that to be selfish in friendship through humility is acceptable. This takes the burden off the Christian who pursues friendship out of selfish desires.

Additionally, we should seek to apply this truth to the cultivation of friendship, especially in small group settings. Selfish humility as the grounding for friendship means that not all were meant to be deep Spiritual friends. Instead, there are desires and needs that often align to make humbly serving a friend’s needs fulfill one’s selfish desires. But it also means we should be aware of potential friendships that we can cultivate when we see those needs and desires aligned. These types of relationships have the necessary ingredients to become true and meaningful Spiritual friendships.

Scripture, philosophy, theology, and life all concur: Spiritual friendship is based on selfish humility. It is the spark, the fuel, and the flame of friendship. It should be taught and demonstrated, continually applied to the life of the Church. Without it, friendship can be depressing, destructive, burdensome, or pointless. Indeed, what is the purpose of friendship in the absence of selfish humility. Friendship and selfishness are not opposites. They are inexorably linked by the example of the Gospel of Christ. It is in this connection that friendships can become powerful tools by the grace of God and for the glory of God.

Selfish Humility: The Paradox of Friendship (part 5)

Now that we have observed selfish humility in friendship and affirmed its truth, let's figure out what it means.

Is selfishness in friendship good news or bad news?

What we see in experience and affirmed in Scripture and reinforced in philosophy, is friendship that is built upon a selfish humility. As an oxymoron, selfish humility presents some difficulty in interpretation. The clearest point made my Scripture and philosophers is that a friend becomes part of oneself. At that point, love of self is automatically love of friend. So to live for the greatest good for oneself is to look out for the greatest good of a friend. This is what we see in Stegner, as well as David and Jonathan. Most clearly we have seen it in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. To love oneself is to live for the joy of oneself. In Christ we find that the greatest joy for oneself is to love others the greatest. Therefore, Christ selfishly found his own joy in humbly loving the Church. There is at the same time selfishness and humility.

We see this at the root of deep and true Spiritual friendship. Unlike worldly selfishness, which desires financial or social gain, Spiritual selfishness seeks the greatest joy for oneself. This is often found in promoting the joy of others. So in Spiritual friendship, one finds joy in the joy of his friend. Humility is found in pursuing the joy of others; selfishness is found in that the joy of others is your own joy.

It is possible this idea is more clearly seen in its absence. A friendship that is built upon selfishness without humility has no boundaries in its self-seeking nature. It is doomed to destruction. This is not because it is too selfish, but because it is not selfish enough. It must put on humility to seek the good of others and therein find its own good. Similarly, a friendship that is built upon humility without selfishness leaves the relationship devoid of desire and delight; it is not friendship at all. Humility without selfishness is only ascetic charity. Humility in friendship needs selfishness to pursue the good of others in love, joy, passion, and delight. Friendship not grounded in selfish humility can barely be called friendship at all.

Selfish Humility: The Paradox of Friendship (part 4)

My "best friend"

Philosophy and experience further this idea of selfish humility in friendship. As a point of simple transition, consider the dog, well known as “man’s best friend.” It has achieved this high standing by gaining the reputation of loving unconditionally, loyally, and sacrificially. Yet, the dog’s friendship is purely selfish. It is founded upon food, shelter, security, and property. It is out to guard its own. It maintains the relationship for its own gain. Yet no one calls the dog selfish. It is this sort of experience we find in friendship in philosophy throughout the ages.

We can go as far back as Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. As he ponders the virtue of self-love and love of neighbor, he concludes that the man who loves himself will be most virtuous and most loving towards his neighbor (Book IX, Chapter 8). He then resolves the tension that becomes apparent in that statement by saying that a friend is really a second self. Like David and Jonathan or Christ and the Church, the souls of the friends become one in a mysterious way. But in this way, the man who loves himself can most fully love his friends.

A few centuries later, Cicero authored his work on friendship, De Amicitia, which would further this idea of friendship grounded in selfish humility. Cicero was a Roman Platonist, therefore differing in his approach from Aristotle. Cicero was concerned mostly with financial or political gain and office when discussing the “need” for friendship. It is difficult to escape his utilitarian nature. However, he does offer this statement on the matter “those who falsely assume expediency to be the basis of friendship, take from friendship's chain its loveliest link. For it is not so much the material gain procured through a friend, as it is his love, and his love alone, that gives us delight” (De Amicitia, 14). Cicero admits that it should not be for financial gain that we pursue friendship, it is for our own delight in another’s love. Therefore, Cicero would agree that we selfishly seek friendship in ways this world would not normally deem selfish.

Aelred of Rievaulx was a twelfth-century abbot whose views on friendship come largely from Cicero. He explains that true friendship stems from a selfish love by quoting and interpreting Psalm 10: “‘For he that loves iniquity’ does not love, but ‘hates his own soul.’ Truly, he who does not love his own soul will not be able to love the soul of another” (58). This cunning perspective is echoed in the third book of Spiritual Friendship. Aelred comments on the second greatest commandment: “Behold the mirror. You love yourself. Yes, especially if you love God, if you are such a person as we have described as worthy of being chosen for friendship… For then truly he whom you love will be another self, if you have transformed your love of self to him” (107-8). Aelred is explaining how friendship can be built on a selfish love, but continually warns of friendship born out of worldly selfishness and not humility. We can conclude that Aelred would encourage this idea of selfish humility in friendship. Marsha Dutton, commenting on Aelred’s third book in Spiritual Friendship, summarizes, “One desires a friend in order to satisfy one’s own longing. Love of oneself makes one love one’s friend; friendship is ultimately the love of self. But God, who placed his own unity in the first humans as a desire for friendship, ensures that the expression of love for the self results in love for the friend as well” (46).

The twentieth-century Anglican apologist, C. S. Lewis, continues these thoughts in his chapter on Friendship in The Four Loves. He begins his discussion on friendship by explaining that it is the least biological and the least necessary of the loves. Yet he goes on to explain that we as humans have a desire for it. Indeed, the desire for needs is not counted as selfish as the desire for non-needs. Lewis explains that it is a selfish desire to be known, to be elite, to be accepted that fuels friendship. But it is also humility that strengthens friendship. He also seems to point to a selfish humility present in friendship.

Selfish Humility: The Paradox of Friendship (part 3)

Was Jesus' death on the cross the most selfless act ever? Or the most selfish?

Christ is the pinnacle of selfish humility toward his friends. Consider a few verses to this end. First, Jesus himself states, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). So we admit that Christ love for his friends is greater than any other love. It is so great that he laid his life down. Second, Hebrews 12:2 explains further why Jesus did this: “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus laid down his life for his friends out of love “for the joy” before him. The most humble act of all time was in fact a selfish act for Christ’s own joy.

This is further reinforced by Paul’s words in Ephesians:

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body” (Ephesians 5:25-30).

What Paul is saying is that Jesus’ friends, those for whom he laid down his life, are cleansed by His blood, they become part of the church, which Jesus will purify and present to himself as his own body. Therefore, similar to a husband loving his wife because he loves himself, Christ loves the church because the church is his body. So in the end, Christ’s death for his friends was out of love for himself.

This attitude is passed on to Christ’s disciples in the second greatest commandment. Jesus says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Jesus begins with an assumed love for oneself. There is innate in each creature a love for oneself that causes a desire for sustenance, companionship, and shelter. Certainly it is abused in our fallen world, but we find it clearly before the Fall as well. God put trees “pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Genesis 2:9) in the Garden of Eden with Adam. He admits that “It is not good that the man should be alone” (2:18), and so he creates Eve. It is an abuse of the love of self that Satan uses to tempt Adam and Eve, which causes pride to continually be the root of sin in this world. Nevertheless, the love of self was created in man from the very beginning and it is what Jesus uses as the basis for loving your neighbor. We are to love our neighbor with the same fervency, creativity, and endurance as we love ourselves. It is in friendship that this love is most accessible.

To prove this, let us consider one of the greatest Biblical examples of friendship, that of David and Jonathan. I Samuel states, “As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (18:1). As we see with David and Jonathan, their souls were so closely knit in friendship that each loved the other as he loved himself. This fulfills the second greatest commandment and gives us a clear picture of selfish humility in Spiritual friendship.

Selfish Humility: The Paradox of Friendship (part 2)

“Is that the basis of friendship? Is it as reactive as that? Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?... Do we all buzz or ring or light up when people press our vanity buttons, and only then? Can I think of anyone in my whole life whom I have liked without his first showing signs of liking me?” (Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety, 20).

Friendship does not begin without an interest in the self. Even a deep and true friendship begins with one person tickling the other's selfish bone.

Take a minute and honestly answer this question: Why do you have friends? Not, why do you love your friends or why are they a good person; but why have you chosen to make that specific person a very good friend?

Did you answer using any of these words: I, me, myself, mine? Try as you may, it is hard to avoid answering that question without expressing some way your friend fulfills your desire, your need. You are friends with them because you find enjoyment, acceptance, love, or someone who listens, helps, corrects, likes you.

Let's find some examples of this in everyday life.

Philosophers and theologians like Lewis, Aelred, and Cicero would claim that friendship begins with a common interest. I agree. But I would say the common interest of two people beginning friendship is one person in the other and vice versa. Camaraderie, companionship, colleagues, and coworkers share an interest in something else which sparks their relationship. Friends share an interest in each other. "There is no glue in [friendship] but mutual liking” (Stegner, 96).

It is selfishness that propels a friendship deeper. After meeting someone with whom you would like to be friends, you want to spend time with them again. This desire is for one's own enjoyment. You want to enjoy time with them, delight in it, know more about them, and interact with them for your own pleasure. What takes two people from acquaintances to friends is not selfless interaction, but selfish invitation. It is interesting to note that most who would say friendship and selfishness are opposites would not mind a friend’s desire to be with his friend.

The opening quote of the first post in this series comes from a scene in a great book about friendship by Wallace Stegner that most reveals the selfish humility of friendship. When the Morgans receive bad news and need some space to get their life back together, the Langs offer them a place to vacation in their Vermont house and are ecstatic when they accept. It is then that Charity Lang states, “As for repaying… friends don’t have to repay anything. Friendship is the most selfish thing there is. Here we are just licking our chops. We got everything out of you that we wanted” (140). Charity admits that they offered their house out of selfishness and the Morgans should accept the offer out of selfishness. That is the freedom found in friendship based on selfish humility.

Indeed, there is a mysterious intermingling of lives that happens in friendship, which provides a clear way to see the connection between self-love and friend-love. When lives become shared and souls become intertwined in this deep friendship, love of self does not oppose love of friends. In fact, the two loves don’t simply play off one another. They become the same love. Love of self becomes love of friends. More on this later.

Before we take selfishness too far, we must remember that it is not simply selfishness that propels friendship, but a selfish humility. There is a sense in which every friend is humbled to be a friend and exalts his friends in that time. Lewis describes it this way, “In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company” (The Four Loves, 104). But even in this humility, there is a selfishness. As Lewis continues to explain, “Life--natural life--has no better gift to give” (105). This is where we begin to see the true nature of a friendship grounded in selfish humility. It is a humility that selfishly delights in the exaltation and joy of a friend. Our ultimate example of this is found in Christ.

Selfish Humility: The Paradox of Friendship (part 1)

“Friendship is the most selfish thing there is.”

(Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety, 140)

Are friendship and selfishness opposites? 

Most would answer yes to this question, like the philosopher Cicero, “There is nothing more fatal to friendship than… the greed of gain” (De Amicitia, 10). However, I would disagree. I would say friendship is built on selfishness. Scripture and Christian theology seem to agree. Contrary to common opinion, friendship and selfishness are not opposites, but instead are linked through the Gospel.

This question is not only ponderable, but also significant. Many Christians treat friendship in an ascetic fashion, stripping it of its joy, pleasure, and efficacy. They fail to see the link between friendship and a selfish humility found in the Gospel. I use selfish humility because it is not earthly and material selfishness that is linked to friendship, but a humility that selfishly finds its own joy in the joy of friendship. To prove this means to free Christians from the burden of ascetic friendship and to take back the power of friendship for the glory of Christ.

This is part one of a six-part series discussing the selfishness found in friendship. The next five short posts will prove how friendship is built on selfish humility, observe this principle in Scripture, affirm it with philosophy and theology, interpret it, and finally apply it. Be sure to stay tuned and comment with your thoughts.

You Are What You Type

"You are what you eat." Weird, because I don't remember eating a nerd.

"You are what you say you are." I don't think that works quite as well. It's called nominalism, and it never works. It's like believing that if you call yourself a professional basketball player, you can play one on one against LeBron James and even score a point. In Christianity, nominalism shows up in people that call themselves "Christian," but don't know Christ at all. Pastors have been concerned about nominal Christianity for thousands of years. But I now see it appearing in a whole new way.

"You are what you type." Now that's something our culture could latch onto. In our new world of social media and electronic identity, we are increasingly identifying ourselves by who we say we are instead of who we are and what we do. Who can blame us? It is so easy. A quick sentence on a Twitter bio or a cross emoji on Instagram, and boom! you're a Christian. It's a dangerous game to get into.

We take it further and create our entire identity in what we type and what pictures we post. Do you want to be pretty? Get the right angle, fancy it up with filters, post it, revel in the likes and favorites, and then you "are" pretty. Want to be cool? Tweet the right thing, and then you "are" cool. Want to be good? Put the right words in your Instagram bio, then you "are" good. Do you see how this works?

We have disconnected who we are from who others think we are and placed our identity in the latter. This is dangerous for a couple reasons. First, it means our identity is no longer something we simply are, but something we must maintain. Exhausting! Second, it means we are constantly trying to deceive others and even ourselves into thinking we actually are what we type. That is not you!

Listen closely: You are not what you type. You do not have to maintain your identity. You do not have to deceive the world or yourself about who you really are. To do that is to claim that the way God made you and God's grace is not good enough for you. You are more than your follower ratio. You are more than your most liked photo. You are more than your most retweeted words. If you are in Christ, you are a child of God, forgiven, loved, equipped, and an ambassador for Jesus.