whatever are you going to do with your life?

I'm a senior in highschool. This brings up a lot of questions about the future, mostly from other people directed to me (not that I don't have questions myself, but I tend to not give them as much thought as other people do to the ones they give me). Top of the list are "So when are you gonna find a guy? *wink*" and "Where are you going to go to college?"

To the first, I usually just laugh and mumble something about waiting on God's timing (actually, I just can't find an old enough guy who'll have me, but I digress). To the second, I usually shock people. My answer isn't exactly the standard one, mostly because I don't jot out a name or even act properly conflicted about my future choices. In fact, by the standards of most people, I'm pretty sure about the whole thing. Except, still, they don't really like my answer.

My answer usually goes along the lines of, "I'm not going to college right off the bat, we'll see what God does, kthxbai." This, naturally, can worry some people, especially those who find it their duty to worry about other people's lives way more than said people do. Invariably, the person I'm talking acts as if I've committed some grievous error and goes out of their way to convince me that I do, in fact, need a college education.

I'm hoping there are some of you out there who can identify with this plight. We get questions, answer them honestly, and then are told (usually with a pat on the back and a little smile) that we're young and so very smart and we should totally go to college so we can get a good job. Even after one gives the most convincing arguments for why college really isn't necessary--the cost, the high unemployment rate among college graduates, the depravity that usually goes on, and the Mrs-degree-oriented Bible school atmosphere--people still carry on, usually by asking "Well then, what are you going to do with your life?"

My answer usually is, "I'm going to be a missionary with a side of political action and a healthy dose of motherhood." And here is where the real kicker comes in. With a look of confusion and an expression of pure woe, they ask, "So you're going to Bible college?"

Nope.

I'm not.

So stop asking.

Okay, so I don't actually say that. But I think it. A lot. So let me just dispel one myth before I stop talking. You don't need a degree to serve God. You don't need to spend $40,000 and four of the best years of your life to serve God. You don't need to get a fancy piece of paper and a bunch of lectures unrelated to your future life to serve God. God doesn't care about those things. When looking for someone to serve him, he doesn't look for what humanity views as the most qualified or the most learned. As the Bible says, he uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

He picks a shepherd boy and a kid from the most dysfunctional family imaginable. He picks a prince-turned-slave. He picked a tax collector. He picked a temple prostitute. He used a murdering Pharisee.

Most of these people didn't have a college degree. Some of them didn't even know how to read. They were simple folk, people who had been radically changed by an Almighty God. That was all they needed, and it's all we need as well. College can be helpful, yes. It can teach you things that are necessary if you want to be a physicist or a doctor. But don't think that just because you want to serve God, you have to go to college. Because that's a lie.