S2E32 - Can You Be Called to an Occupation?
Summary: In this episode of College Conversations, Jeff Sherrod, Gregg Garner, and Laurie Kagay discuss the concept of calling and its relationship to occupation, exploring whether calling is an internal discovery of one's passions or an external directive from God. They emphasize the importance of understanding calling through a biblical lens, highlighting the communal aspect of calling rather than solely individual pursuits.
[00:00:06.48] - Jeff Sherrod
Hey everyone, and welcome back to College Conversations. I'm your host, Jeff Sherrod. I am joined in this week's episode by the president of the Institute for God, Mr. Gregg Garner. And I'm here with Professor Benjamin Reese as well. In this episode we're talking about what, how should we characterize the time of the college years? We will spend some time talking about the debate that sometimes people have about these years. For some, some people, they want to say that college is a period of time that kids need to grow up faster, that they shouldn't just be sitting around and thinking and doing all the things that they might be doing in college. They need to get into the workforce and go faster. On the other side of that, we have some people that says, no, this is a unique time and it's important that this time is protected and we don't want people to get into the workforce too fast. As always, instead of just saying, Greg gets into this instead of just saying what the problem is and how can we do it. What we want to try to do in this episode is to say, what does the Bible say? And we'll go back to Genesis. We go back to God's intention, even in the garden, to recognize that God was creating an environment that was suitable. We'll talk about times that this critical learning period, even from books like Proverbs, and recognize this as a protected time. That sometimes what people want and they want to get so fast is not the thing that they want when they actually get it. I really do think that you'll appreciate this if you are a prospective student and you're looking at college or you're a college student even today and you have some even goal conflict about what should I be doing and how should I be preoccupying my time. I think this episode would be really helpful for you. Happy you guys with us here today. Hope you guys enjoy college conversations.
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Hey everyone and welcome back to College Conversations. In recent years we've seen maybe a growing trend among young people to consider issues that maybe we once viewed as adult concerns like homeownership or financial stability, long term career planning and doing that earlier in life. On one hand, it's promising to see college students thinking about their future. But college is also a unique stage. It's a time that is intentionally set apart for learning, growth, figuring out who you are, all those kind of things. So with that, we're trying to talk about what is this time for college? How should we conceptualize the college years? What's some of their purpose in terms of your long term development as a purpose as a human. So, Ben, maybe you can kind of talk about some of the issues here. Like when we're bringing up this issue of like, what is college? Like, maybe you can help us understand maybe the two competing views about how people see this time.
[00:02:52.56] - Benjamin Reese
Yeah. So I think one of the big issues is that, you know, everyone is trying to figure out who they are and what they're responsible for. And each person has a conceptualization of what role they play. And that sometimes has to do with what work they have or what if they're part of a family and what part of family they are. But it also, we also develop our idea of what role we have based on the expectations that culture has for what stage of development we're in. So we base our identity partly on how we conceptualize as a 20 year old, what should I be doing? Where should I be at, what should I be responsible for, what should I not be responsible for? And I think in our culture there is a conflicting narratives that young people get concerning what the college age expectations are. So I think there's one side that thinks that college is kids are growing up too slow, that they're, they're in college, but they're not working hard enough and they should get more of the taste of the real, real grit of the real world. And they're, you know, we're setting them up for failure. And so students feel like, man, I should be thinking about getting a house, I should be thinking about my career in very concrete ways. Then there's another side that says, no, this is a time of personal development. You shouldn't have those types of concerns. You should be concerned with figuring out who you are. And so there's, I think that there's a difficulty for young people to conceptualize what this, the college age should include as a season of life, what responsibilities they should take on, what responsibility should they leave for another stage of life. And so I think that's really the question that I would like to explore.
[00:04:43.35] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah. Do you, when you're thinking about it, maybe for you as well, Greg, like, do you think that there, have you seen a trend for the college to themselves going one way or the other, like, just based on what you've seen? Like, are you seeing people be like, no, college is a time that I really need to be able to think about long term financial goals and planning? Or are you seeing it like, no, this is my time. Are you seeing.
[00:05:06.04] - Gregg Garner
My experience with young people coming into college is that they're usually an extension of the aspirations of their family. Whether or not their family specifically noted those goals or they were just part of the environment that they came up in. So for example, if I come up in a household where mom and dad are constantly worried about their bills, constantly regulating cash flows and just talking all the time about money this, money that, money this, money that, it's now on the kids radar to the degree they probably simplify it, right? Like money is so stressful to my family, it's because they don't have enough. And they don't have enough because I heard my dad complain one time that it's the man. And I heard my mom complain one time, it's this. So I'm not going to work for the man and I'm not going to do this other thing. And the answer is going to be money. So I'm going to figure out how not to be stressed by money. And then college becomes the means towards getting that money. So I'm going to go to college to be a business major so I could start my own business. And then I won't have those feelings. And then when it's, but when it's explicit, which sometimes happens, a family will say, hey, here's, here's the trajectory for you in the next few years. I'm hoping this will happen for you. And we've been wanting you to become a nurse your whole life since you were a little kid. So you just concentrate on that and then we know that it'll all fall into place. And so usually because of the institution of nursing, a student graduates, gets a job that now is designed to pay so you can pay off your loans, they now get what they would consider to be a good paying job, not going to pay off the loans. So people are less worried in that context. But nonetheless, the person is now entering into that career work world with this value that says for them, I've become a nurse and now I'm paying my bills and I'm an adult because I'm occupying this space that I had as a goal. And then I'd say the other party is the one that's kind of like a hybrid of those two things where you have someone's life that's kind of scripted with goals and then another person where there's like these axioms that are now informing their behavior. And it's, it's, it's this group of people that I think are the majority and they are now very, it's, they're very impressionable as to what direction they can Go. And I would say the. The polarized consideration, if I was to generalize them, would be something, again, that's scripted and something that you feel. So this one's more thinking, this one's more feeling, right? And now this. The larger group of people are going to be influenced by people who are giving them thoughts to think and by pressures that they're feeling. So maybe they'll go home after their first semester Thanksgiving, and they'll hear about the cousin who didn't go to college, who's now working a $40,000 job and is getting ready to buy his first house, and everybody's, like, clapping for him. Where they're just like, I had my first semester, or I'm just finishing my first semester. I'm taking finals. So now they're feeling the pressure that's related to this other cousin who has what feels like a higher social standing in the family group. So now they're starting to have ideas about it. So what do they do? Just like our last episode, they go to YouTube. How do I get a house when I'm. Whatever. And now, instead of focusing on their studies, they're now figuring out how to get a house. House during that time. Because now they're getting other people's thoughts. So now thoughts are informing them. Knowledge is through media. Feelings are through friend groups and family. And I feel like it's like being thrown into a washing machine. They're just tossed around. And we know that as believers in Jesus, our direction comes from God and his Word. And the way out of that spin cycle is to acknowledge God, to trust God, to not lean on your own understanding. And then direction comes. You acknowledge him in that, and he gives you a path to go. And I think that's what young people need more than anything. They need a godly path to navigate. They need to understand that it's not broad. It's not the wide road that everybody goes by. It's a narrow gate with a narrow way. And it's hard, but it's going to lead to life. And I think if you can help young people understand that this period in time that they're in where they've been introduced into freedom, because technically they've become an adult and they can manage their own time. They have autonomy, but at the same time, their faculties aren't developed in the way they will be. Even, like, anatomically, physiologically. Their brains, as we've talked about, aren't even finished yet until their mid-20s, late 20s. So the. These guys are in a limbo. And I think they need. They need the safety of mentors that they trust who can help talk them through this. I think they need the support of their family because they've been able to promote a vision for their family. Like, God directs our path, but that doesn't mean that we don't know where we're going. Like, there's. There's a way to talk about what I'm hoping to do. Like, even for a young person to be able to come home at Thanksgiving and say, wow, cousin Brad, that's really awesome. What it is that you've been able to do with housing and such. For me right now, everybody, I'm learning so much. And I'm learning a lot about my faith. I'm learning a lot about who I am as a child of God. There's some practical things that I'm also learning about managing my time, but I'm really focused on developing a philosophy for how to go through life. Yeah. And I'm so thankful that I'm learning the Bible, because that's where our values come from. And I'm glad to be on this journey. And I think in the next couple of years, I'm probably going to pick a concentration that is going to give me the information I need to know so I can join the workforce. But at this time, I'm just really happy to be learning about who God is and in turn, who I am. Like, even getting a script like that for a young person is not always available to them.
[00:11:46.04] - Jeff Sherrod
No. Yeah.
[00:11:46.75] - Gregg Garner
They. They go to colleges, even Christian colleges. And there's just so much axiom going on. People don't help young people develop a script to help everyone else around them understand who they are and what they're doing. And think about it, too. Especially if it's a narrow way that few ever find. If that's the case, you're not going to inherently make sense to people. You have to be able to articulate the narrow path that you're on.
[00:12:12.75] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:12:13.14] - Gregg Garner
In the same way that someone wants to get downtown, we're in Nashville. We're on the outskirts of Nashville. They're like, jump on the 40. We know there are alternative routes to downtown, and sometimes the 40 is going to be congested. Sometimes the 40 is going to have a bunch of issues with that interstate. So a person with knowledge will say, hey, let's just take Lebanon pike, and we'll go through the Hill industrial district, and we'll come back around through the historical 155 or whatever it is. Like, you know, the area. And so you know, how to get there. And I think young people need to learn that such exists in our world that there's not. There's not a one size fits all when it comes to human growth and development. But at the same time, there is one God who loves us and wants to direct our path and help us to make the most of this journey. And I think it is a crazy mistake for young people to not have a period of time where they can focus on biblical education that helps them to know who God is, who they are, and the values of their faith.
[00:13:16.47] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, yeah, I think I agree with you on that. They're just mirroring what their parents do, you know, when they're coming. But I think because of that, even that mirroring, we are seeing, at least the way that I've seen it, I see a lot more students now talk about their financial future than I did even, you know, five, six years ago. And I think it's because their parents, you know, and we've mentioned this before in the podcast, they were coming up in the Great Recession and money is a huge issue and they all have student loans. And, you know, now the lessons get taught to their kids. And so, you know, they're. And I think that one of the challenges we've had some slogans that we have that try to help people direct. It's not just about what you do. It's about who you are. It's about becoming, not just doing, trying to capture this. Like this is a time that it can't just be all about making money. It can't just be all about what you're going to do for your career, for the rest of your life. But have a time that you're setting aside a first fruits experience.
[00:14:16.73] - Gregg Garner
And this is not a new problem. Genesis 3 highlights this exact problem. The woman had a desire to access a certain kind of knowledge that, according to her observation, she saw that the tree was good for food. So there's a sustainability element, which everybody's looking for, she saw, was pleasing to the eyes. There's an aesthetic element. We don't want a jalopy to drive. We. We want something nice and beautiful. We want a house that fits our aesthetic. And then she saw that she had this desire that it. It's possible this thing can make her appear wise.
[00:14:50.87] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:14:51.17] - Gregg Garner
And so we also want to look like we're making great choices. We want to look successful when it look like we have power. So these, these threefold considerations exist at the base of a young person's desire to figure out how the world works. And I think that that narrative gets kind of mangled by other agendas specifically related to demonstrating our evil appetite to do sin and then immediately jumping to the cure is Christ, which I absolutely believe that the cure is Christ. But the lessons in that, that narrative are to help us understand the human condition, specifically that God wants to walk us through it. God wanted to open their eyes, right? They wanted to open their eyes for themselves, but God wanted to walk them through life so that those questions could be answered. I think a misreading of that text is to think God doesn't want them to know how to have sustainability or how to have a beautiful world to live in or how to be successful. That's not the case. God wants to walk them through it. He wants to be the one to open their eyes to it. That, to me, is a biblical education. If you take away from young people that biblical education, then they're going to go out into the world and figure out how to navigate it. And in our next story, chapter four, Kane figures out how to be very successful, right? You got to cut down your brother to who you find to be weightless in the world and insignificant so that you could advance your personal agenda, which includes generational wealth that you could pass down seven generations down to Lamech. And everything else is happening there, right? He like found the city dude successful. The industries that come out of him, the entertainment industry, the meat industry, metallurgy, I mean, Kane's family were successful in that, but they, they did it walking away from God. They. They didn't learn who they were. When, when Lamech communicates that there's a 70s times 7 vengeance related to God's eye on his family, he's completely messed up, right? What it is that was actually God's word to Cain because he's now got kind of this cultural religion that's based upon power and success and aesthetics. I mean, even, even the make out of Cain's family through the. Through one of the daughters. But when you think about what would have happened if they would have denied that and then just walked with God. Now that storyline is answered in Jesus, who, though being equal with God, did not consider it something to be grasped, but instead emptied himself and became a vulnerable human being who had to humble himself into obedience, even to a cross. So Philippians 2 helps us to understand the alternative way to walking with God that young people need to become aware of. Like, young people need to know you're at a time in life where God actually designed in the ideal. For example, when they were there in the garden. We know that the Bible tells us God had an irrigation system going on that like a mist came up from the ground. Right. Some people will say, yeah, that's called dew. Well, yeah, that's, that's, that's the term to describe it. But the Bible is going out of its way to say God did something right. To make sure that this garden could be productive. And I believe it's productive so that it minimizes the kind of work that the man and the woman were supposed to do so they could be available for biblical education. And that's why as a post secondary Bible institution, we've done our best to figure out how we could get students to come learn God's word and to cause a mist to come up from the ground so that they're not having to work in the way that they would have had to to pay off those debts. And that's why 100% of our graduates graduate debt free, related to their collegiate experience. But it comes from the Bible. These are not just ideas we had because we hate debt and we hate all these other kinds of things. We're not the kind of people that start problems and then give answers. We start with Scripture and move forward like that's, that's our point of departure, as always scripture. So to me, I think this time in a young person's life is exactly where the man and the woman landed in Genesis, chapter three. That's where they're at. They're at this pivotal time. Are they going to let the world and its knowledge open their eyes to see how to answer those problems, or are they going to walk with God? And I'm hoping more young people recognize we gotta walk with God. Walking with God is the best possible thing that could happen to us to open our eyes to how the world really works. And God will answer those questions. He will help us to figure out how to make something beautiful, how to be sustainable, and how to have success, genuine success.
[00:19:46.75] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah. How do you think that? Because at the same time, you know, we, at least for our school, we do try to balance. There's some balance where we try to say we also recognize that you, we want to give you some real world experience. Yeah. And part of that means that we want to have job experiences that you're going to have. You know, we keep them educational even as they're going through it. But whether that's through internships that they have or all kinds of, all kinds of things that we do that prepare people. If someone listen to this is like, well, how does that fit with this model of this being a set apart time? Shouldn't I just be a student the whole time? Like what if.
[00:20:24.02] - Gregg Garner
Well remember, it's not that God just wanted them in a classroom. See, that's the bias in all this, right? Education is sitting in a classroom, being lectured at.
[00:20:35.67] - Jeff Sherrod
Yes.
[00:20:36.20] - Gregg Garner
God wanted to walk them through life. How better to help a person understand what it is that's happening in themselves and in the world around them than to be present for them in the various contexts of life. So if a young person does have an internship and they're getting to teach at a school or help out over there, it's so important that God walks them through that. And the way that we believe God does that is through his scripture. So that's why even with our internships at the institute, they're always correlative to what's being learned in the classroom. So if I'm taking my mark class and I'm interning at elementary school, my paper is going to be on elementary education to some degree. Because now I'm going to let God open my eyes as I'm walking through that environment. How could I learn anything if I've not been in that environment? Right. It's all just conceptual. Now I'm going to read a book about what it's like to be in a classroom while someone teaches me the Bible about how to handle the classroom. When you finally get in the classroom, that's not walking anyone through anything, that's just talking them through everything. So it's important to get that that verb to walk has an experiential component to it and that the classroom is not just the place where you're being lectured at, but the classroom is every venue. Because God has no limitation as to where he can walk you through. God. God is not limited to our religious venues. You can take him on the construction site and him walk you through how to understand the, the disparities that exist in our world as to who gets what when. The variety of workers that actually implement the building of our world, whether they're immigrant workers or they're non post secondary educated workers, whoever they are, your eyes are going to be opened either by the world itself or by God. And so we're trying to teach our students in this special time. Let God open your eyes because the, the, the risk is less because we are facilitating it.
[00:22:39.92] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, that's right.
[00:22:40.67] - Gregg Garner
Right. Like even I know sometimes our students will, through misnomer and misconception, say I got to go to work. And while they are implementing a service, these are not jobs. They don't qualify for the jobs. They, they don't have the necessary prerequisites to effectively implement at the job. They an agreement that we have with the respective institutions to let them intern and to develop awareness so that they have a better mental construct for the concepts they're contending with. And in that case they can make a better decision about their future. But it's not work in the traditional sense. Right at work, there are metrics of expectation related to your job description that you have to merit on the day to day or you will be fired. And that's just not the case with these young people in their internships.
[00:23:36.01] - Jeff Sherrod
It seems like the misconception. If you're looking at Genesis and the mist comes up from the ground, people just have like their hands behind their head and they're just like imagining God, you know, like, what could it, you know, that's not, that's not. They were doing work.
[00:23:48.39] - Gregg Garner
Yeah.
[00:23:48.75] - Jeff Sherrod
You know, he was just saying chapter.
[00:23:50.11] - Gregg Garner
Two right away is they're working, then.
[00:23:52.45] - Jeff Sherrod
They were busy doing the work. But this was a facilitate it moment for them. It was protected. God had intention in what he was trying to do. So, yeah, it's not like, I think that's important. Right. When we're saying this should be a set apart time. But that doesn't mean that you're just. This is like go to a country club for four years and sit around for the day. Yeah, I think it's important. Yeah.
[00:24:15.32] - Gregg Garner
I think it'd be funny that someone thought that would be a good education.
[00:24:19.60] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah. Well, I think it's like college is interesting because at least the way that when I look back at some of my college experience, I remember just having so much free time.
[00:24:28.43] - Gregg Garner
Yeah.
[00:24:28.79] - Jeff Sherrod
I'm just like, man, if I could, I really could have done more. And I think I did a lot, actually.
[00:24:32.35] - Gregg Garner
Yeah.
[00:24:32.82] - Jeff Sherrod
But then when you think about like, I could have done a whole lot because there's a lot of free time.
[00:24:37.47] - Benjamin Reese
Yeah.
[00:24:38.28] - Jeff Sherrod
What do you think, Ben? What do you think is what. How would you characterize college time for students?
[00:24:46.75] - Benjamin Reese
I think that, you know, I think that the Genesis 2 and 3 consideration is really good. There's also the same time period is considered in the book of Proverbs as being a time when people are rushing into the city to make a name for themselves. But wisdom is trying to slow them down and take. Make some considerations before they go into that, into that environment. And I think it's very tempting. I think especially now because thinking back on my college experience, I did not think about my financial future at all. I was just like, I want to become educated. That was like my, that was the only thing I had on my mind. I just wanted to learn some new things and figure out who I was. But I, I find very few students that have that sort of mindset anymore. I'm not saying it was the best mindset, it was just mine, Mine was similar.
[00:25:42.24] - Gregg Garner
Yeah, I was very mission oriented. Like I, the kingdom of God needed advance and I wanted to be used by God. And so I want to be prepared for that. And I'm thankful for the opportunity to work in the institution that we do with the institute because, you know, all of us can take our various experiences and inform our current practice, especially in guiding these young people. So yeah, maybe, maybe we were more on the extreme because I also didn't think about the financial implications of even what it meant to do ministry. But I know that our students do get to hear all of that. But that's the thing, right? Like God wants to walk with us through it. He's not just leaving us to information or knowledge based answers that you can just search out. God wants to walk with us through it. And when you walk with God, the writers could have chosen other verbs like run with God, fly with God, right? But walk with God gives you the pace. And I know that with a biblical education you can't rush it. It's not like other things, you can't rush a biblical education. A biblical education means the most when it finds its way into your day to day, when you're learning something and you're like, wow, that is helping me to recapitulate my understanding of my family. Up to this point, I thought we were doomed now because of God's word and learning about grace and learning about redemption, I can see that I'm actually playing a pivotal role in the transformation of our generational trajectory as a family. Like that's a huge, huge thing. But only if you understand God cares. A lot of, a lot of these knowledge based education systems, they don't care if you go be a business major somewhere. They don't give a rip about your generational transformation. All they care about is whether or not you've submitted on time and paid attention to the rubrics for assignments. That's it. It's a limit. So Christian education, in my opinion, necessitates the presence of very active mentors and professors who are capable of giving time to students so as to know who they are and to even help inform their walk into where they're going.
[00:28:13.10] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah.
[00:28:13.69] - Gregg Garner
And that's. That, I think, is where Christian education has to go. And if it doesn't, I think we're falling short.
[00:28:23.25] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, I agree with you. I really appreciate the point, too. It's like you cannot speed this up in your own way.
[00:28:30.59] - Gregg Garner
Right.
[00:28:31.60] - Jeff Sherrod
I love that. The idea that you're. You're going to walk as you're. As you're doing. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah. So, you know, what would you. What would. Maybe just ending some practical advice here. What would be some advice that you would give to students they're coming down to college, Maybe they do have some minds where it's like, all right, I want to make sure I get this job and be this profession and have some future goals, you know, like, what would be some practical advice you maybe would give to help them to recognize the walk that they need to engage?
[00:28:59.06] - Gregg Garner
Ben, you want to go?
[00:29:00.78] - Benjamin Reese
Sure. I mean, my first advice would be that if you are focused on those primary concerns of your finances, and that is your sole focus, what the proverbs will teach is that makes you a prime suspect for people who want to manipulate that desire to cause you some real harm. And so it might feel like a liberating thought to say, I'm going to look out for myself and get what's mine. But it ends up putting you into captivity, is what the proverb says. And it's mirrored in that image of Psalms 1, where there's these ways that are available to a person that look tempting because they're established, but if they can plant themselves by God's word, they will become a kind of person that's secure, while those other people become insecure and just tossed by the winds. So I do think that there is a period where you have to give yourself over to God and you have to give up some seeming certainty to find that true certainty that comes from knowing who God is and knowing that he's with you through life. Because that's. That's the best security and the only security we can really have in this. This world that's very uncertain is just to know that God is walking with us.
[00:30:36.84] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, that's great.
[00:30:38.04] - Gregg Garner
I think sometimes the entertainment industry informs our sense of urgency when it comes to our development and what success we'll have. For example, I think we know that when it comes to athletes, they're. They're hitting their prime in a lot of these sports in their late 20s. That's when they're hitting their prime. And certain outliers like LeBron James, right, will be there for us. But. But most people, they're. They're on a critical timeline. It's similar in movies and in music because the only. Usually the older superstars we have, we were introduced to them when they were younger. And then they've had all this pressure to have to maintain their look. You know, a lot of these guys are dying hair, wigging it up, all kinds of stuff. But young people, I think, know and are aware of that pressure to be successful in, early in life because most models they see are in the sports and entertainment world, where, in contrast, if we want to understand ourselves in light of the walk of life and human growth and development, there are certain things that God did that would slow us down. We've already mentioned it a couple times, but just the fact that our brains aren't fully developed until we're on the later end of our twenties should tell us something about our executive functions and capacity. I tell my kids all the time the reason why God did that was so that you could recognize that the executive function of your brain is outside of you. And it's called your parents. And you also have mentors. And we should be involved in how you make some of these decisions because God left you without the ability to do it on your own. Now that is super countercultural because you'll have a lot of young people who are like, I can do it, I can do it. And there are young people who put out there a major semblance of success. But unfortunately, we see the tragedy that often strikes when young people hit too much success. A few people come to mind. We very much in the public, Justin Bieber has been out there with, with all that he had to go through, and he's even lamented through songs about how lonely it made him, how. How painful it was for him to be given all that money and all that freedom and anybody else. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or Shawn Mendes recently had to take like a mental health break from his tours and had similar laments. But you know, this. And even recently the, the young man from One Direction, I believe his name is Liam. He, he was, you know, had all kinds of drugs in his system. Had his life come to an end tragically. Yeah, just a couple weeks ago at a very young age, also lamenting very similar things. So we have these, like, these real world examples of people who in their youth have come into all this kind of success, and we can hear them with their own words, testify to the fact it's not been good for them. It's not been healthy for them, but the. The visuals of money and power seem to override or the possibility for money.
[00:33:57.38] - Jeff Sherrod
And power will be different.
[00:33:58.54] - Gregg Garner
Yeah, ye will be different. I also think of like. Like historically, Augustine was probably around 40 years old when he wrote Confessions, and that became his seminal work, right? This is what everybody knows Augustine for. In his mid-70s, he wrote another book called Retractions. Nobody knows about this. Everybody knows about Confessions. And they've based. I mean, religions have been based off of confessions, or denominations of a religion have been based off of confessions. But in Retractions, he takes back a lot what he said in Confessions, but again, nobody read that. And that, to me, has been a sobering reminder of the fact that in every decade, I'm a work in progress and I'm subject to my own limitations as a human being. My lack of experience, my lack of time to be able to apply knowledge to experience. And there has to be the acknowledgement of that reality to exist in these varying stages of life. So that as a young person, if I can learn that my 20s are a time to really learn who God is, in turn learn who I am, to learn purpose, mission, vision, to invest into my capacity so that in my 30s, I can now start implementing and developing the experience that gives me the venue for saying, yeah, this worked, this didn't work. So that in my 40s now I can start really creating distinction between the way in which I'm going to do this very specific thing. Because you've kind of honed out everything else so that now in your 50s, you're like, I have enough experience with this. I'd like to mentor other people into that and help them figure that out. Or probably you'll wait and go. This, this is my decade to just put grind like this is. This is where I'm gonna put out my best work. Everything's still there. 60s is probably now the time to go. Let me pass this on to some people. Let's create some legacy. 70s, let's enjoy life, right? And in 80s, it's almost time to go to sleep. It's like, people don't think of life along these lines.
[00:36:05.98] - Jeff Sherrod
They want 50 today.
[00:36:08.01] - Gregg Garner
Today, right? And at that point, good luck in becoming a really great liar, because there's no way you know anything about what you're talking about. And I think a person who learns the scriptures is able to offload that burden that comes from the world and just go, no. God designed life to be lived out over the course of time. And I often Talk about this to students when I'm teaching the book of Genesis, like a big revelation in there is that God could have just said, let it all be done right now. And it was done. But he didn't. Even God worked over the course of time. It says six days that he worked. So for God to model for us, that time is part of the cycle of life and that work takes time and that we are his workmanship. So he's going to need to take some time with us. It's better to give him now than later, especially because if you're going to let the whole world build your knowledge base in your 20s, you're going to be deconstructing in your 30s, if you even get there, right? So I think for a young person to recognize, wow, Jesus is Lord, I really believe in Him. He's my God. I'm now going to submit myself to his work and his way, and I'm his workmanship, and he wants to work on me. Your 20s are a grand decade for that.
[00:37:33.13] - Jeff Sherrod
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate it. I think that's such a helpful framework for whether you are a prospective student coming into college or, you know, you're thinking about, I'm a young person. What should I be preoccupied with? It's so freeing to think about how God develops us, right? And it's like, and we can give ourselves over to his timeline as opposed to ours. Thanks for joining us today on College Conversations. Till next time. See you guys then. Thanks for joining us on College Conversations. Hope you guys enjoyed the show. As always. It means the world to us. When you, like, subscribe, you tell your friends and your loved ones about this show. If you haven't yet, head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcast and subscribe to it. You'll be notified anytime a new episode comes out. Also, head over to YouTube and subscribe to our channel. Let other people know about the work that we're doing. As always, let us know about any comments that you have, things that you want to talk about, things that you appreciate. We really do appreciate hearing from the audience. Until next time, we'll see you guys on College Conversations.