The Last Go Around

"May God bless you and direct your steps during this your final year of preparation in our home."

"This your final year."

I just recently turned eighteen, and this was part of the caption on a birthday post my parents did. And it caught my attention, as everything your parents say should.  I'm on the downward slope.  I'm coming up to the last lap, the last quarter, the last mile in this part of the race.  I'm on my last go around.

College is just around the corner. In less than one year I will make yet another move, but this time, it will be solo.  It's terrifyingly exciting.  As much as I am looking forward to being able to go to college and take the next step in life, I still have one major hurdle standing in my way.  That is none other than senior year.  It is intimidating and stressful, and the mounds of homework that I have to plow through everyday far surpass that of junior year.  This should be expected, and yet this first month of my last year has been hard.  

Many of my friends are in their final years as well and are also beginning to feel the symptoms of stress. Many of them are juggling massive amounts of school work, sports, social gatherings, and that college application process.  It can be taxing.

Although we may actually not believe this, there is a light at the end of this tunnel.  Don't sink into the common disease among people our age known as senioritis.  Now this doesn't need any explaining, but we do need to give it a wide berth.  It's too easy to sit back and to settle.  But that is not what this year is meant for.  Senior year is not a time to sit back and wait for the "real thing." This year is your final year of preparation in your home.  Your house should be your boot-camp; it is not your shelter.  It's a place where you are surrounded by loved ones who want you to succeed.  And for that, they'll push you.  Hard.

So this is me encouraging you (and mostly me) to attack this year.  We are being trained up in the ways of the King of kings to be soldiers in a war that is being fiercely waged.  We are like "arrows in the hands of  a warrior."  It's almost go time, and it's time to be prepared for the battle.

"This is no time for wimpy Christians.  It is time for soldiers of Christ to arise." - Alistair Begg

This is no time for wimpy Christians.  This is the last training year, the last go around.

What do you do in the fourth quarter, the last lap, the final minute?  You give it all you've got.

Give it all you got.