So yesterday I announced that I was starting a new writing project.

I made my announcement the way most people do such things, or attempt to share anything with the world at large anymore, I posted an image to some of my favorite social media sites. Here’s what I said:

One does this, I suppose, for a variety of reasons.

Yes, to declare to the world that I am going to attempt something — beyond myself. But also, I believe, to gain the collective support and encouragement of those who might take notice of this declaration — because we know that we’re desperately going to need it.

I was pleased to receive a number of uplifting comments and words of affirmation throughout the day.

But it was the interaction I had via Twitter with a former student of mine that led me to believe I was actually on to something.

Our Twitter conversation went something like this:

@ ME: Starting a new writing project today. #timetowrite #workingtitle

@formerstudent: nice! Wish you would have written that a few years ago! One of the biggest struggles I had in college!

@ME: Hey @formerstudent! Good to hear from you! The question I have is: what would have gotten you to slow down long enough to read it?

@formerstudent: Maybe someone recognizing my frenzied life, using the book like a stop sign, and smacking me over the head. MAYBE then…

@ME: So you’re telling me there’s a chance??? 😉

@formerstudent: Only if you go around campus smacking kids in the face with the book! 😉

 

What struck me most about our Twitter chat was the fact that I knew this student to be among the cream of the crop while he was here. He was a stellar student and student leader. He was an engaged student who took his academics more serious than most. And although he was clearly busy, he appeared at the time to have a better handle on the distractions of life than most of his peers.

So if he confesses to me that this was a major struggle for him, than I’ve got to believe it was all the more so for many of his peers, who seemed to be much less aware of the fact that they were indeed living a distracted life.

This particular student graduated back in 2012.

So he’s just like you. Isn’t he?

In more recent years, I feel like I talk with more and more students who struggle with regret over how they’ve spent their year — or how they’ve spent they’re entire college career.

It used to be that when I talked with students who had regrets about something from their college experience it centered around one or two incidents — not an entire year (or more).

So I wonder if maybe this post can serve for you as a stop sign of sorts! If you’ve read this far, maybe you resonate with the reality that noise, hurry, and crowds are having an adverse affect on your life and relationship with God.

Or maybe you are feeling overwhelmed by the way you are living life and recognize the need to make change and create some intentional space for God in your life.

Or maybe it’s something else all together.

Whatever it is — I wonder if you might take some time to explore your life (and even invite God to shine a spotlight on the areas of your life that might need changing) with the intent of beginning to quiet those things that so easily distract you from God.

What do you think?

Now is definitely better than 5 years from now. Don’t you think?