College years
are a challenging time for us Lutheran students—perhaps one of the most challenging periods in our earthly lives. While these years are meant to be a time of growth, learning, and service to our neighbor, most university campuses have a very different worldview from the one we hear preached in church. Campus life has a lot in common with the craziness of the ancient pagan world, and both have the same motto:“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” This philosophy has been preached everywhere from the Coliseum to your dorm room, and it says that the most important thing is to do what makes you feel good. Life’s short, so just have fun! Pick any commandment—third, fourth, sixth, eighth—and break it because it’ll make you feel good. And what’s wrong with feeling good?
So our professors tell us God is dead, classmates tell us to ditch church, and friends tell us that honoring our parents is lame. Everybody cheats, gossips, says this, does that. And if we don’t join in with them, we’re losers. Maybe we follow them in search for pleasure. Maybe we hide our faith to avoid looking uncool. Maybe we harbor hatred in our hearts for them to make us feel better about ourselves. We’ll do anything just to get that grade, that guy or girl, that financial aid. We’ll do anything to feel good. But none of it works. We end up overwhelmed with homework, stress, loneliness, and temptation. In the midst of the sadness, fear, and sin, we eventually find ourselves flat on our faces, realizing we can’t do it. We can’t meet our own standards for “feeling good”, let alone God’s perfect standards for how we ought to live. We discover that the campus motto is actually the world’s lie. When Satan tempted Eve, he told her that the fruit would make her feel good—it would make her be like God. In following the promises of the world, we end up rejecting God and replacing Him with our own desires. Just like Adam and Eve, we look upon ourselves with shame and try to cover our nakedness, but we can’t. Who can free us from this weakness and sin?
Eat, Drink, and Be H I G H E R T H I N G S __ 14
By Molly Buffington
