What Do You React To?

      The transition to college wasn't the easiest for me. I did well in high school, but my work habits were sloppy and most of my life structure was imposed upon me by my parents. When I found myself in a situation where a little last minute cramming and flurry of effort couldn't bring me the results it once had, I got into a downward spiral. Crappy work lead to crappy performance which lead to me feeling crappy about myself just as a person (I'll discuss this flaw in my concept of self-worth in a later post, for now let's move on). Last semester was a train wreck and I carried all the baggage from it into this semester. By the end of January I was hitting breaking point. As I sat on the floor of my bedroom praying to God for some kind of guidance out of the hole I'd dug myself into, I got an answer: "Everything in your life is subconsciously reacting to your opinion of yourself and your problems. That makes them your god and that's garbage. *I* am your God. And these issues are nothing compared to Me."


      We don't have golden calves these days, and we all learn as far back as Sunday School that you don't have to officially 'worship' something for it be your god. The question I learned to ask that night was "What am I reacting to?" All my calculations and plans up to that point had been about 'getting around' my difficulties with focus and studying. I treated them like they were the one, unalterable fact that everything else had to deal with. A real acceptance of the fact that God has the power to overwhelm our issues with His might and love just didn't exist in my head. Sure, they existed as theology to me, but when rubber hit the road my attitude was "Yes, but this is different".
 
      Ultimately, everything in our lives is going to react to one supreme thing that we value. If we value family over career, it's our job that will have to make allowances and compromises. If we value sleep and social life in college over grades, we're going to have to accept that what gets put on our papers may not be our best. If we prefer waffles over pancakes, the pancakes are going to have to deal with the fact that we don't want to eat them. There cannot be multiple supreme things that are somehow equal, because if they ever came into conflict we would simply have to choose one. No matter what we want to believe, we can only have one true love, everything will in some way react to that love.

      So let's not confuse our lip service with our actions. What is our life reacting to?