Reflection on TCX - Part I

TCX 2008 has really been an eye opening experience for me. I’ve been to Christian conferences before, but not like this. The theme of the conference was “All In”, God really taught me a few things during the course of the conference. Which lead to an important decision of my life which I will get to later.

What God taught me was that even though I was involved in Campus Crusade and serving him that way, I’ve ignored other areas of my life which I have not really given full control to Him. Before the conference, I thought my life was good. This past semester has been probably one of the easiest semester I had since college started. My heart was at peace, and I saw relationships around me get fixed. I really enjoyed serving others on my campus, and it was cool to see how God used me and the rest of the team to build up this group of God thirsty students at school. I was ready to go off to Madison next semester and tackle the students there. I got accepted into the Electrical Engineering program, and I had all my classes registered. Spring semester will be starting in a few weeks.  

During TCX, I was struck by the fact that I really didn’t give up everything. I’ve ignored my career choice as a decision for God. God works in amazing and humorous ways. Steve Papez setup an appointment for me to meet with Scott Roe (campus director of Madison) so that I could get plugged in right away. There was about getting me plugged in into the “senior level” Bible studies with a little more than a dozen God fearing men that Scott personally disciple. God was just opening door for me. I was told to go to Scott’s seminar titled “Discerning God’s Will”, so that I could meet with Scott after the seminar. Since the appointment and all that was set for me, I did not really have a choice in which seminar to pick. So I went to the seminar, and Scott was telling the group briefly of his story, which later I got a more in depth version of. 

Scott was originally an engineering major. He was at his junior year, when he started realize that engineering might not be the best for him. It was to the point where the math is getting pretty hard, and things weren’t fun anymore. Some how he decided to leave his engineering goal behind and pursue communication. And now today, he’s the director for Madison’s Campus Crusade, serving the Lord, and changing lives of lost students.

When I heard his story, I was in shocked, that he is telling MY story. I am going through the same exact struggles that Scott was going through. The decisions of staying with engineering or not… It was interesting that I was put in a setting in which I had no intension of being there to begin with, but Steve set an appointment for me, I couldn’t really turn down. The director at the school I will be attending next semester is telling me MY story though his story. That is really when I really asked God where I could serve Him better. The decision for engineering was sorta pulled out of a hat to begin with. I knew I was capable of becoming an engineer and that I have always been good at math and science. I originally picked engineering because I knew a few friends from high school who are headed to that direction, and I figured why not (without doing much research)? And the amount of money that I will be making was a big pull to the decision.