finals & all that entails.

It feels like for the last week and a half my entire life has consisted of little more than paper after paper, long hours at a million different coffee shops, exams, way too much coffee, not enough real food, not enough real studying, and sleep. I'm not one of those people that can neglect sleep in the name of being a good student; I certainly don't do it during the semester, and exam time is no different. If it comes down to sleeping or studying, nine times out of ten I will chose sleep. That's just the way it is. Part of it is that I'm just not a great studier. I can write papers all day long, but just studying feels so empty to me. I know it serves a purpose, but I always just feel very pointless when I study, like nothing is actually produced by all of the time and work I put into it. I know that's not entirely true; it's probably only my mind rationalizing poor study habits.

I think I made a mistake this exam season. I've actually worked harder than any other exam time of my college career, never mind that a lot of the work I have been doing has been to make up for slacking off earlier this semester. But I have been working hard nonetheless. My mistake was not the amount of time I worked or even the inner slacker that lives within me, but the shift in my priorities that comes with this time of year. There are periods where I am able to pretty well balance my life: the spiritual, the social, school, work, family, sleep, etc, and there are periods where it all goes to hell and sleep becomes my top priority or friends become what I invest all of my time into.

The funny thing is that when things get crazy the spiritual never seems to just float to my top priority. If I want to make time for God first, I have to work at it. If I want the spiritual to trickle down from the top into every other area of my life, that is not something that just happens on its own; if I am not actively striving to make this the case, it simply will not occur. I cannot imagine a more potent argument for my own wickedness, my own brokenness. If I was truly good, than of course my tendency would be to gravitate towards relationship with my maker. My tendency seems to be the total opposite. It's not like I am turning my back on God or even saying that I don't need to spend time with him. I just get lazy in our relationship, because there seem to be so many other things to fill my time with, so many pressing things that need to get done now. So my attitude towards all things spiritual turns to apathy. It's still important to me, but I don't care enough to change anything; I don't care enough to rearrange my priorities. How quickly apathy turns to sin.

Exam time has made this more evident to me. I see a stark difference in the way I have been budgeting my time, and the way I should have been using my time. Of course, during this crazy time school needs to be up there, studying is a must in college, especially in finals week. I am not saying that I have studied too much, in fact I will say that I have not studied enough, however I have not made time to spend with Dad. On my good days Jesus is a part of everything I do. On my bad days when I leave him out or make him watch from the sidelines, not only does our relationship suffer, but every relationship I have suffers. Like I already mentioned, on my own my wickedness takes over, it rules my life, it dictates what I do, what I say, how I treat others, and everything else. I want God to be my number one always. When that is easy, and when it's more challenging, because it changes everything. I am so much more happy when I have that time, so much kinder, more understanding, I give better advice, I even think studying would have been better had I let Jesus be a part of it.

I am happy that I have my last exam today. I cannot wait for it to be over. I only hope that I remember this feeling come next exam time, and all the other stressful times I am sure will pop up between now and then. All I have to do is let him in.