I just got back from an awesome, adventure filled snowcamping trip.  I went with 5 of my friends to a place that was about two feet deep in the kind of snow that just crumbles as you make a snowball because it is so powdery.  We hiked in 3.5 miles to our campsite which is parked along side a lake that was frozen solid.  Our daytime high was 45, and our night time low was below 9---yes, more than 23 degress below freezing.

The trip in many ways paralleled our life with God.  Overall the trip was a great joy-fun and successful, but there were definitely some hardships.  And, if one wasn't prepared with the right equipment, the joy could easily be taken away.  Without the right equipment, and then trusting that equipment to work, one would be extremely cold with losing some fingers or toes at best, or one could end up getting hypothermia and dying.  Our equipment in many ways is like God's Word.  We have to invest in it, many times beforehand.  We have to trust that the tools we are given and have researched and studied will be just what we need.  And then, when the time comes, we have to test our tools and use them.  Just like our trip, sometimes we were cold, sometimes it was hard and tiring, most of the time it was fun and exciting, but we had the right equipment and trusted in it and used it-- it made for a successful, joy-filled trip.   It was a good thing we listened to people who had been there and done it.  It was a good thing we studied up on what would be needed.  It was a good thing we thought how to apply the tools we had before we got there and had to fumble through in the cold and dark.

I pray that you are a student of God's Word.  I pray that it permeates your every part of your life.  I pray that the Christians that are around you will feel almost ashamed because of your hunger and thirst for God's Word, and therefore challenge them as they see in your life your commitment and faithfulness to God's Word and God's faithfulness to you.  Our students are hungry for more.  The problem is, they aren't really sure what they are hungry for, so they are stabbing at everything that 'seems' good.  Unfortunately, most of those things are good by world standards, but fall way short of God's standard and what He wants for us.