Waiting to Live your Life?

I work with college students. College is supposed to be a time of learning and training--for our future careers right?

But what if we also looked at this time our lives as a time for living....not just preparing to live later? I think many people--over all of their lives fall into the "next thing" trap--I remember a poem I got from my high school senior year english teacher called "the odyssey" expressing this idea. It challenged us to not live waiting for life to come--the next job, when we had kids, when we took a vacation--because then life would pass us by! Such a simple concept--but how I see myself and those around me falling into this trap of living in the future.

It's similar to a parable in he bible--the one with the "talents" where a master leaves servants to care for his money--each receiving 1,5, and 10 talents. The one who receives one talent buries it--at least it will be there with the master gets back! The others take a risk and bring back multiples of what was given to them. I'd usually use this as an example of "blessed to be a blessing"--but I think it has some lessons about wasted potential.

I see the same thing often on Georgetown's campus. Some of the world's best and brightest come to spend four years there--for many, thinking they're preparing for a lifetime of service--service in health, in politics, in education. But a challenge I always want to pose to them--what about if they started trying to serve now? Not just wait until after graduation to think about serving the poor, or changing their spending habits. If they plan to one day be able to wake up and selflessly attend to the needs of those around them--in a slum, a hospital, or the political arena---what kind of practices are they developing now?

We all know we can't just one day wake up and be able to pray intimately to God for hours on end if we haven't been developing spiritual disciples of praying, reading our bibles and knowing God for time before that (hard example--know there could be exceptions!).

Similarly--if we want to be living as Christian people, loving the poor and lame--how are we doing loving our neighbor--in a dorm? a worker at the cafeteria? Our friend who is depressed? The needy are not always this "other" far away on the other side of the globe.

He who is faithful with the little will be faithful with the big.
Let's start practicing with the little bit in front of us now---rather than dreaming of the big that we will encounter "someday."