School has already started for some of you; and for others, school commences this week.  Your parents have been weighing all the options in Idaho Falls — homeschool, private Christian school, charter school, or a traditional public school, etc.  Now it is upon you.

You are registered for classes.  All of your school supplies have been purchased after a last minute trip to Walmart.  You have been connecting with friends through a continuous stream of phone texts, face chatting and facebook.  There is a twinge of anxiety, maybe dread, as you think about your teachers, your classes, and your looming study demands.  Honestly, I am a tad concerned about my daughter, a senior at Skyline, and her first trimester schedule:  College trigonometry and pre-calculus, AP English, Economics, AP Biology, AP Government, and College Spanish.  It’s a good thing that she has a smart mother to go to for questions.  Back in 1988, when my wife and I graduated from Skyline High School, my favorite topics were lunchtime, playing basketball, and chasing after Kristie on the campus.

You might be wishing that you had a few more weeks of summer. Unfortunately, our summer days fly by like the Idaho wind, but its ok.  You are ready for the 2015-2016 academic year.  Right?  Let me briefly encourage you with three thoughts.

1. Make your studies your calling. If you are homeschooled, pursue to the full extent your intellectual interests; sharpen your talents in what you desire and where you are gifted.  Carpe diem.  Take the extraordinary field trips.  Spend the extra time practicing your musical instruments.  Dig deeply into your school projects.  And relish the time with your family.  If you are enrolled in a Christian school, take notes in chapel.  Enjoy the times when Christian teachers pray for you.  Take advantage of Christian counseling and mentoring.  Be on guard against apathy.  If you are attending a public school, respectfully ask many questions of those who are highly skilled in their fields of expertise and who you admire.  Be the student.  You don’t know it all.  You don’t have the life experiences that they do.  Hunger to be sharpened and your teachers will respond accordingly.
2. Taste the diversity and appreciate the unity. Be friendly to new people outside of your circle of friends and who are different from you. Join a club.  Bounce around in fun electives as you would taste various foods in a restaurant buffet.  Dabble with different musical instruments.  Read a book that you would not normally read.  Seek to learn about different things, but also understand how everything is connected:  your language class with business and economics, your math class with music, your biology class with nutrition and sports, your government class with debate.  Watch for how fields of study overlap and intertwine.  Remember this:  all truth is God’s truth.
3. Glorify God. In connection with your school studies this year, read the Bible.  Understand what wisdom is all about.  Read Proverbs.  Read Ecclesiastes.  The author of Ecclesiastes exhorts you, “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth; walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these God will bring you into judgment.  Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh, for childhood and youth are vanity.  Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come . . . “ Learn and live for the glory of Your Creator.

May the Lord’s grace and peace fill your heart in this new school year.