SEEK 2017
by Stephen Tony
.
I’ll keep this short because I know you’re busy. We’re all busy. We stay up into the late hours of the night grinding out assignments and studies to get a solid GPA. We join more clubs than we have time for just to put it on our resume. A close friend once told me “I’m sacrificing who I am now for who I’ll be later.” But does it end when we get our degree? Soon the desire for achievements and promotions will push us to do more again. A Harvard Business Study showed over half of Americans work 50 hours a week (1). The chase keeps going.
Maybe it’s not career success but you are busy with something. Maybe you’re the one who wakes up at 5:30 am to get your workouts in. Maybe you spend lavish amounts of time with friends and family, enjoying their company. Maybe you’re searching for something to take away the hurt in your life. Maybe there are choices you’ve made… choices you regret, habits that have become a part of your lifestyle without even realizing it.
No matter what it is, you’re busy doing something. Why are you so busy? Ultimately it’s because you are running after something, whether it be success, wealth, power, the affection of others, or perhaps even numbness. But the first question begs a second: Did you get what you wanted? If you did, then why are you still chasing after something? All these things keep us happy for a little while, like food. We eat to stop the hunger, but it’ll return. And when it does, we search for something else to fill us up, but the hunger will return. And even if we could have all the success of money or Twitter followers in the world it still wouldn’t fill us!
Perhaps our dissatisfaction is meant to point us to something greater. This gets to the heart of the first words Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John. As people start to follow Him, Jesus poses the question: “What are you looking for?” Jesus asks what we are seeking-what moves us? He asks this because from that answer stems our response to everything else in life. What the Apostles found, and many people throughout the ages have found, can be summed up by Pope John Paul II: “It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted… it is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives (2).”
You will never know if Jesus Christ is the answer to the deepest longings of your heart unless you give Him a chance. One great opportunity, coming this January 3rd-7th, is SEEK 2017. SEEK is a conference where over 10,000 college students will come to find the answer to the question “What do you seek?” We have a group from Bradley University going and we invite you to join us on this adventure to discover a God who knows you and loves you, and has a plan for you greater than anything you could ever imagine.
Links to the website and the promotional video are below. If you want to join us in San Antonio, TX this January, please reach out to Samantha Johnson at smjohnson2@mail.bradley.edu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERtkc8rInfo
(1). http://www.hbs.edu/women50/docs/L_and_L_Survey_2Findings_12final.pdf