Being at Cairn has provided me with several opportunities to cross paths with many students and friends. I realized very quickly that some had little support outside of the Cairn community. For those friends, coming to Cairn might have been their first genuine interaction with a loving Christian community focused on the Bible. For them, Cairn was an amazing shock to them, maybe even a difficult culture to understand, learn, and step into. So where are they left when they step foot off campus every break, and further, the final destination of their voyage after graduation?

                For my friends, my mentors, those who graduated with me this May, or even those younger than me who are returning to Cairn in the fall, summer is now upon us, and all of us are now back in the “real world.” We are now in the world, and outside of a place that some would call the “Bubble.”  How are we all surviving in it? For some, the culture of the real world was present every time they walked into their home, not only after another year at Cairn concluded for summer break. Whether these students were returning home on the weekends, school break , or even commuting home after classes every day, the “world” was very present for them.  But summer is here, and we have all stepped back into the culture of this world. Many have gone to work at ministries like Christian camps; but for those not going into professional full-time ministry serving for several months, the prospect of receiving minimal income will no longer be an option. Having been raised and having grown up in the ministry of Christian Camping myself, I know this lifestyle full well. As I work my hard-labor job around the rough, gruff, and broken young men of society, I dearly miss the communities saturated with Jesus. So here we are, outside the bubble, and soon you will be. How prepared are you for this transition in life?

                 What is the culture of the real world like? Well, the harsh realities are often immediate and easiest to see. The realities counter to what Jesus desires most in His kingdom are the realities most likely to jump out at you. These realities are the glorified qualities of harshness, cruelty, lying, manipulation, selfishness, orgies, adultery, drunkenness, sensuality, revenge, brutality, and greed. These various qualities are obvious to us. In seeking what God desires for His children and disciples, we might find it easier to avoid these. For we have heard our Father’s warning to avoid living “of” the world while we are simultaneously living “in” it.

But there is something very strange, something very sly, that slithers and creeps into your life. Something that tempts you in a way you do not see coming. An unseen force not always seen inside the Bubble of the wonderful light, the source of believing souls shining brightly together. It is the darkness around you. Slowly, a grey haze comes over your eyes like an unnoticed blindness.  This haze causes you to slowly turn your gaze from noticing and desiring the things of God.

                “Oh didn’t you know” Satan chuckles. “You stuck out like a sore thumb to me in my world, the moment you walked out of that christian school. I saw you when you went in there, you with your strong desires to be closer to God. And I’ve seen how you’ve been built up and equipped in Him.” So you see, Satan is not going to outright challenge your beliefs and drag you away into his dominion. Doing this would be too obvious for you to notice, for light does not do well in darkness. No, Satan is going to slowly entice you by surrounding you with the subpar things of this world’s kingdom. How does he do this?

One way is through your social group. Going home may mean that you will be back around your old non-Christian friends. Those friends you used to do everything with and you love so dearly. They will hang out with you and blatantly, or even slowly, ask you to return toward your old ways. Even if you moved to a new place outside of college, you will begin to reflect on your life before college and what parts of it you want to take with you in your new setting in life.

Around those friends, you will not notice how your heart strings are slowly being pulled. Your identity with God, that was so strongly formed at Bible college, is being questioned. In the world’s eyes, to your friends, family, and co-workers, you have suddenly lost your idea of doing fun things, you have lost your ability to be cool, or advance anywhere quickly in life. As a result of following God, you have now become strange, boring, foreign, or just down right stupid and naïve to “life principles.” You have become this slightly crazy, young individual that young non-believers are not interested in anymore. You will be pressured in revealing how you became this way, and they will offer you the choice to not be this way anymore. I mean, we cannot blame the world, if somebody genuinely loves and enjoys something, they will advocate for everyone to join their way. Just know that they have unfortunately lost their way and sometimes want to see you lose your way and join them. You see, light gets in the way of their walk and reveals their darkness. For some, you represent the holiness of God’s light, and these people want to see that God is a fraud to prove their presuppositions of Him.

                 So now come the temptations, what was fun, cool, and delightful at Cairn is now the boring, lame, and somehow immature thing to do around your worldly non-Christian friends, co-workers, and family. This temptation begins to lead you to believe that your time at Cairn “was a waste of your time in brain washing you into some weird, old, and outdate ideology.” This temptation, as you begin to hang out with the world and start feeling the effects of your environment creating grey haze within your spiritual sight, you may feel a loss of your passionate delight for Biblical community and service that you once had in college. As a response, Satan begins telling you that you are somehow less of a Christian now, desiring to create shame and guilt in order to drive you farther from God. He will say to you that the person you were at Cairn was really the fake, fraud, and two-faced you. That the real you is who you are when you are with your old Christian friends walking in their “cooler” ways.  Satan will try and convince your own heart that you never were a Christian; even more, that you were not a a knowledgeable, strong, or passionate one.  As a response, you may ask yourself, “So what’s the point in continuing to grow or follow Christ, read my bible, or go to church?”…Well, what is the point?

                So one temptation is for you to slip away into the grey haze of the world. But there is another temptation you may find. This temptation most often finds its way into the path of the Christian who is trying to stand firm and strong in their faith. If you are that Christian desiring to stand firm, Satan may begin to tell you that your friends and co-workers and family are starting to see you as this super Christian. That they are starting to look at you as a holy person for simply going to Church on Sunday. So, in response, Satan supports that claim by saying “You are so mature in Christ. Look how much closer to God you are. What’s the point of you growing closer to God? All these people think you are a guru in the faith and a super spiritual giant. Why don’t you just take a break from God, going to church, and reading the Bible? You are already there anyway.” Satan turns your heart into one belonging to a Pharisee by saying “Oh go ahead and sin a little, in your usual ‘pleasurable,’ secretive sinful habit that you have. I mean it won’t hurt, you are way more holy and pure than those non-Christians are. Why, you know they sin all the time, because they celebrate it right in front of you for all to hear.  What hurt could one sin do to your life? Don’t mind growing more in Christ, you are already mature. I mean really, why read your Bible further, you read it like five times in college. Don’t you know it all already? Go on take a break.” Again, what’s the point of growing strong in Christ?

                So what does this do to you when you are at church, around other Christians, or even in God’s presence? You begin to feel these weird, fake, and two-faced feelings and desires start to well up. You start wondering if what your friends, co-workers, and family are saying about Christians and God is really true. Maybe all this time, when I thought I was doing the right thing and being close to God at Cairn, fulfilling my ministry covenant, I was perhaps on the wrong side of what was right and good in this life. My friends are right, maybe the church is a bunch of hogwash-believing hypocrites only out for my money. I mean, Cairn cost a lot of money anyway. Maybe Christianity is just a crutch for insecure people, a brainwashed place, a place for fools, and self-righteous judgmental people. Why continue to go to church and live in these restrictive ways that isn’t like the “freedom” that the world offers?

These thoughts may flow through your mind as you walk into church, and later as you leave. Then, the dull and grey haze creeps into your heart week by week. Finally, you do not even want to go to church anymore or hang out with true Biblical community. Questioning the validity of what God says has now crept into your soul. Who is right? How can I discover what is truthful outside of the Biblical Bubble Community of Cairn? There is no chapel telling me so, no professor giving me notes on how to respond, no roommates or friends to be there to challenge me to actually care…(Then you realize)….Oh Christian friends…I don’t have any of those right now, or I have not prioritized them in my life.

               The power of Christian friendship is the answer to withstanding these temptations and promote growing in Christ. Christian friends are some of the most needed and strongest assets in growing and staying strong in your walk with God, inside and outside of any Biblical Community. Do not fall back, my friends, into walking your old path. The easier path is the one that the world walks, but please walk a different one.

What active steps can you take to be reminded of God’s promises and love for you? First, contact one of your classmates from Cairn. Find them on Facebook and message them for support. Then, email your professors and ask them to pray for you and ask for guidance. Maybe you will even find someone who desires to meet up with you, call you, or keep in contact with you as a prayer partner.

I encourage you to pray, seek out, and find one to two friends to keep in contact with through prayer. Meet in person, Skype, call, chat and talk of God. Intentionally seek out living life together with other Christians—this summer.  

Contact your local church—they are there for you, and really do want to hear from you and encourage you in any way they can. Contact the church you attend while at Cairn, they really do look forward to seeing you in the fall again. This is true even if they may not directly say so. Churches are so encouraged by seeing young adults worship God with them!

Do not let the temptations or guilty feelings of shame and disgrace keep you from reaching out to a Christian you know. It is often the temptation of our souls to think that these Christians will think less of us. Satan wants us to believe that lie. He wants us to be alone, afraid, lonely, tired, weak, and without power to stand firm in our faith. You were never meant to live this faith alone. Do not buy into this worldly culture’s ideology of independence. God has called you to be dependent upon Him, and dependent upon those in His family around you and in the Church. Without their support, you will fall in your independence! Do not be like Frodo Baggins, when the Fellowship of the Ring was falling apart, to think you can leave bonds of fellowship and walk on your own. Satan will win if you do this. Make sure to find a few friends, like Frodo’s friend Sam, in your life that can hold you up when you are unable to hold yourself up.

                Keep on praying my friends, and keep on reading your Bible. You will be amazed at how differently the Bible will speak to you when you are reading it slowly. The slow pace of meditative prayer and reflection is often different than reading Scripture for class homework. Read a devotional or listen to Christian music. You cannot counter the piercing temptations of Satan without these tools. The temptations pointed at the very core of your soul’s identity in God, if you live without hearing from God in His word, will negatively penetrate your spirit. Remember Ephesians 6 and hold fast to the Sword of truth! Reading truth will keep your mind ready to call out the Devil in his schemes. It will sharpen your response, causing you to respond lovingly and truthfully to your non-Christian friends, co-workers, and family when they egg you on, mock you, or put you on a pedestal that only Christ can humbly sit on. God desperately wants to use you in order to show them the truth of the love He has for them. Yes, through you.

Satan hates that you are now fulfilling the greatest part of the great commission by going back into the world. Yes, you are a disciple living a mission for God’s kingdom right now as you live in kingdom of the world. Satan knows this and will do everything he can to blind you to this fact: you are a powerful force of good that pierces the fleeing darkness. This light consists of God’s love, grace, forgiveness, mercy, patience, purity, self-control, and faithfulness shining from the Holy Spirit within you. These are the Kingdom values of God, and are counter opposite to the values of the kingdom of the world! A soldier that does not realize he is at war lays his guard down while at home, and will not survive the battle. 

                You cannot do it alone. Though you have not talked about God as intensively and passionately as you did at Cairn does not mean that that passion is gone. Spend time around some Christian friends. As you do, you will see that they fan to flame within you the passion and knowledge for God. This is a passion enabling you to live strongly and boldly in any situation of life. Intentionally thread your precious life into binding chords of friendship with Christians that will not easily be broken. For a strand by itself can easily be overpowered by two.

Therefore, my family, I encourage you and exhort you to uphold your calling as wonderful children of God. I exhort you to stand firm in God’s radiating love for the World, to see the world transformed, and experience its revival through you.  I exhort your to go create within your life, a new “Bubble” community that others can reach out to and join for growth. For like a greenhouse, a Bubble is great place for growing and fostering.

Go Revive The World,

1 John 4:4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.