Several weeks ago, when I wrote about how to succeed at MSOE, or at college in general, I left out the most fundamental point: the role of God in one’s studies, and life in general.

Looking back on my four years at MSOE, I can easily say that my Junior year was the best and the hardest at the same time. Although I had the most challenging classes of all four years, I learned an immense amount of information related to my major. I also broke up with Lydia in the middle of my junior year. While it is true that was a very difficult time, it forced me to rely on God for strength where I otherwise would not have necessarily been inclined toward doing so.

Last night, while we were reading the Bible together as a family, the following verses from Isaiah 40 stood out in my mind:

28 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the LORD,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
31 But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

This was a good reminder to me that it was, indeed, God who brought me through the challenges of my junior year and used them all as a means to strengthen me and teach me, as well as show his continual goodness and strength.

From an eternal perspective, the success I’ve had at MSOE is insignificant, as good grades that helped me to find a good job don’t serve to bring anyone to God’s kingdom. Rather, it is my hope that my interactions with other students and my attitude toward school during the past four years at MSOE have been a time that God has used me in his fulfillment of the Great Commission – ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen” (Matthew 28:19-20).