So this past weekend I went to a Navigator Collegiate Gathering. We had Navs from FSU, UF, UCF, and USF. It was quite an experience. The speakers were tremendous, the workshops were informative, heck, the food was even good!
Dave Haus gave a talk on Friday night. One of the things he talked about is what we need in order to fight the good fight. One of the things he said was courage, and I’ll never forget how he defined just what that is:
“Courage is acting when success is not certain and sacrifice is necessary.”
I think that’s a perfect definition. So often I’m not willing to do something because it’s not a gimme. Either it requires my time or my heart or my effort and I’m just not willing to give any or all of them for something that might not even work after all that. It really made me think about what I spend my time doing. It reminds me of something Dawson Trotman (founder of the Navigators) said:
“Never do anything that someone else can and will do when there is so much of importance to be done which others cannot or will not do.”
So that’s the major thing that I got out of the conference: that I need to pray for boldness and courage, and make better use of my time. There’s were other things of course. I got to see a lot of people that I only get to see a couple of times a year. I got to see Neil, a guy I went to Cuba with last summer, who I hadn’t seen since the end of that trip.
We also said goodbye to Joel Helms, who left the conference early Sunday morning to fly to Costa Rica to learn Spanish. He’s been the guy discipling me these past six or so months, so it was hard to see him leave, but I’m so excited for him. He’s going to experience so much these next couple of years. I’m actually pretty jealous when I boil right down to it.
Monday was spent studying my butt off. I made a deal with God before I left to go to the conference. He didn’t want me to bring my stuff to study for my Buddhism test to the conference because it would be a distraction sent from Satan and all. So I told him He would have to take care of it when I got back on Monday. Well He totally blessed my studying and the test was actually pretty easy. Went to my Macroeconomics class next and got my first test back – 100% baby!
Today has been rather uneventful so far. We watched a movie in my first class, and after that I spent about 2 hours on the phone with my mom talking about this and that. I’ll be seeing her and the rest of my family next week in south Florida when they come down from Connecticut for a visit. I’m excited; this is the first time while I’ve been in college that I’ve seen them at a time other that Christmas or the summer. Since we’re staying with my grandma, and because I’m only coming for the tail end of their visit, I’m going to be babied by everyone! That’ll be a nice change of pace.
