The End

It feels crazy to be saying this, but today I am writing my last blog post while at Link Year. What a journey the last year has been! It’s hard to put into words all that I have learned and in all the areas I have grown. All that I know is that I am not the same person I was 9 months ago when I started the program. Looking back, I was so selfish and focused on myself. I thought I had my life pretty much all together. I was only coming to Link Year because I didn’t know what I wanted to major in at college, or that is what I kept telling myself. This attitude made me come in very prideful because I didn’t really think I needed Link Year. I was just here because I wasn’t sure what else to do. Because of this attitude, I was pretty miserable for the first part of my time here because it was not really what I was expecting it to be like and I had left such good friends back in Omaha where I went to college last year. I began questioning if it was even the right decision for me to come. It was not until God revealed how focused I was on myself that I finally began to enjoy Link Year. My thinking shifted from “how can I make Link Year better for me” to “how can I glorify God while at Link Year” that I actually started to enjoy it. That is why the verse that really sums up my biggest lesson learned while here is John 3:30, which states, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” When I started to do this – to make God huge and myself tiny – my whole perspective changed. I realized that I didn’t have everything together. I realized how broken and need of God I was. Now I am 100% sure that this is where I was supposed to be this last year and it is crazy to think it is already over. I’m sad to leave. I’m sad not to have Brian, my mentor, near by. I’m sad to leave the friendships that I have made. I’m sad not to have speakers from around the country come and share wisdom with me each week. However, I am beyond excited to see what God has in store for my future. I’m excited to start applying what I have spent the last year learning. I’m excited to go be a light wherever I am.

The last year has been quite a journey, but a journey well worth taking.

Thanks for reading!

Live a High Impact Life

Well… I finish Link Year in exactly 16 days. That is crazy to think about. The last year has honestly been a whirlwind and I can’t believe that it is almost over. This week we have had the opportunity to hear from Austin Ochs who, believe it or not, is the second to last speaker of the year. He has been an awesome speaker to have while we are coming down the homestretch. He actually is speaking on a topic that caused me to come to Link Year. He is a unique speaker for Link Year, because he works full time in business whereas most of our speakers work for a ministry of some sort. It has been really neat hearing him talk about how to run a business that honors God and is a light to its employees and clients. Last year, I went to the University of Nebraska for Architectural Engineering. However, I kept being bothered by the fact that if I went into Engineering, or any kind of business for that matter, I would not be able to impact the kingdom of God; and if it was possible to impact God’s kingdom in the work field, I had no idea how.... so I came to Link Year. Austin has been incredibly helpful in answering this question. His main focus was on, “How can we live high impact lives?” The verse he used as his thesis was Ezekiel 22:30 which states:

 "I looked for someone (Character) among them who would build up the wall (Competence) and stand before me in the gap (Connection) on behalf of the land (Commitment) so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.”

He explained that in this verse, God was looking for a person of Character who would honor God, a person of Competence who would pursue excellence, a person of Connection who would serve people, and a person of Commitment who steward resources.  If we live with those four virtues, we will be able to answer well the two greatest questions everyone has to answer before they die: 1) Did I become who God wanted me to be? 2) Did I do what God wanted me to do?

Austin also broke them down further like this:

Character: “Character is being.” To live with character and honor God we need truth, faith, and character.

Competence: “Competent managers bring Expertise, Innovation, and Discipline to a Coordinated effort.”

Connection: “Connected leaders bring Vision, Hope and Courage to a coordinated effort.”

Commitment: “Committed stewards bring Perspective, Integrity, and Generosity to the LIFE (Labor, Influence, Finance, Expertise).”

He went into all those in much more depth, but it would be difficult to share it all on a blog. Austin was an incredible speaker and really challenged me to live a life of impact. Not to settle or coast through life. More than any other speaker, he has shown me what it looks like to go impact the world through whatever platform I am given and gave practical ways of how to do it.

The Trap

This week I would like to talk about a chapter from the book the guys are reading for their Bible study. The book is called Jesus The King by Timothy Keller. In it he walks through the book of Mark, breaking down much of it verse by verse. Reading this book has greatly increased my understanding of Jesus and what he came to do. The chapter I will talk about is entitled “The Trap” and it breaks down the story of the Rich Young Ruler in Mark chapter 10. Keller starts off the chapter stating how a historian named Andrew Wells noticed that the core of all main religions other than Christianity have stayed in the same location. Islam started at Mecca and is still there today. Buddhism started in the Far East and that is where it remains. Hinduism started in India and remains a mainly Indian religion. But Christianity is different. Its core is always moving. The original center was Jerusalem. It then moved to Rome. A few centuries later it moved to Europe and through immigration to the North America. Why does Christianity do this? Wells believes “that when Christianity is in a place of power and wealth for a long period, the radical message of sin and grace and the cross can become muted or even lost. Then Christianity starts to transmute into a nice, safe religion, one that’s for respectable people who try to be good. And eventually it becomes virtually dormant in those places and the center moves somewhere else” So the problem for Christianity is wealth – that is “the trap” that Keller is talking about in this chapter. Not that wealth is bad, but when its put in a place of being our savior, there is a problem. How do we know if money is our savior? Here is what Keller says Jesus inferred in his conversation with the Rich Young Ruler: “Right now God is your boss; but God is not your Savior, and here’s how you can see it: I want you to imagine life without money. I want you to imagine all of it gone. No inheritance, no inventory, no servants, no mansions – all of that is gone. All you have is me. Can you live like that?” I thought the way Keller put that was so powerful. I have read this story so many times but never thought about it like that before. Can I live without the comfort that wealth brings? Will Jesus truly be enough for me? I would like to say yes but its much easier said than done. I love what Keller says a little later: “If you want to be a Christian, of course you’ll repent of your sins. But after you’ve repented of your sins you’ll have to repent of how you have used the good things in your life to fill the place where God should be.” So how do we avoid the trap that wealth places in our lives? In America especially, we are surround by wealth everywhere we look. Is it even possible for us to be 100% free from its grasp? Here is what Keller says about that: “Does it move you to think of what Jesus did for you? When that begins to really move you, amaze you, make you weep, you’ll have a fighting chance of avoiding the trap. Letting Jesus’ sacrifice melt you will drain money of its importance for you.” In other words, we need to make the Gospel real. We need to remind ourselves of it daily. If we are able to do that, then money will lose its hold on us and we will have, as Keller puts it, a fighting chance of avoiding the trap.

Thanks for reading!