There are three very powerful organizations in our country ...our government, our military, and our college universities. Many countries have powerful governments, many have a strong military ...but, few have an educational system as vast as what we have.

Let's look at our college universities ...and what they provide, what we seek to gain while attending, and what educational benefit we take from them.

Through some process of decision-making, many young people choose college.  It involves an investment of choices ...a path of desires leading to a field of study, a major, a degree.  I went to Michigan State University.  I admittedly didn't know what I wanted to do.  I thought I wanted to be involved in the out-of-doors, and working with people.  And I did, in fact, end up working a good deal out-of-doors ...& certainly had my opportunities to work with people.

But, this path didn't look anything like I had imagined.  Sometimes the towering images we have, aren't the ones we live out.

I never dreamed that the towering image of intellectual achievement would have to first fall, and be traded for a tower from which those held guard ...to keep those within from getting out.  I did work 18 years before that in a Mental Institution, which was equally challenging ...then moved on to a prison, housing the supposed mentally ill.

These are two groups that I had never in my furthest imagination even thought I'd be working with.  I did not study this in college.

Usually college involves choosing something you'd like to do, or something that is readily available ...with clear possibilities, and often an income aspired to.  Instead, I was working with those who had lost or forfeited their opportunities.

I used to say, admiringly, that Dad was a correction officer, though he seldom had to use his belt on us six kids.  We saw wire like this ...but that was to keep the cows in.  Dad and Mom did quite well, in my opinion, in raising us. That is the preferred way to learn.  Though, if lessons have to be learned the hard way, I think it's better to correct your ways even in solitary confinement ...than be socially confounded, and never learn.

Many have studied and learned while behind bars ...not to be confused with passing the bar. They actually were able to examine themselves & raise the bar, and work to better their lives. Whatever courses ...or course you take, you can study and learn as much as you can & get as much experience as you can.  To borrow a slogan from the military, you can become "the best you can be" in what you set out to do.

There is much decision-making that is made in our young adult life that often affects the rest of our life ...so, it is important what our calling is, to mark our course.

Sometimes we try to mark our course, and someone else tries to help mark it for us. Sometimes a mark is placed upon us ...that we wish wasn't there.  But, let's look at another Mark ... where we are told to go into the world.   That would be Mark 16:15, "Go into all the world ..."   To be all you can be can provide many services to our world.   We salute the soldiers who are all they can be ...providing an invaluable service to our country.  We are unmatched with our contributions to the world in most every field of study.  But, it is not just the top people in the field, or the brave soldiers who serve us ...all of us are called by Jesus to, "Go into all the world to teach the Gospel ..."