Balance on Unsteady Feet

Hey y'all! Soooo if y'all didn't know, I have recently moved to Branson, Missouri and am attending a program called Link Year! Link Year is a program for recent high school graduates/ college students who are looking to go deeper in their faith and learn more about our awesome Savior and how to make his name known. We are required to write a short post every week and i am thrilled to be able to tell y'all whats on my heart! First off, i just want to start and say that Link has been so so great thus far. It has been a few weeks of crazy intense fun, growth, and community and we have barely just started. But, what has been most difficult for me has been balance. There are an unreal amount of really awesome people here at Link Year and i'm already so pumped to know all of them and come to love them as the year goes on. However, i also committed myself to some hours of college classes through a community college back home and i think that i either a) underestimated the difficulty of the classes i was taking or b) overestimated the amount of self-discipline i have, and it has come to kind of kick my butt these past couple of weeks. Because when you are surrounded by really awesome people it is really hard to want to sit and do work. This fact has been really consuming me this past week and it has given me an unnecessary amount of stress and made me be unable to truly love and commit to the people around me. BUT, thank goodness we serve a God who wants to give us rest. Garrett Perkins, director of Kanakuk's KampOut ministry, came this week and gave us an incredible BIBLE OVERVIEW in 3 days (Yes, it was overwhelming). Anyways, on Tuesday we went over the creation story, and Garrett brought up the 7th day of creation. Rest. Genesis 2:1-3 says, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation." 3 days ago i would have looked at this verse and probably just related it to the sabbath and not thought anything of it, but through Garrett, the Holy Spirit made it known to me that when God rested, He had done all he needed to do. Not just for a few years, not for one day, but God had completed his work here. The words "it is finished" have a completely new meaning in this context to me. It is finished. God has done his work, now he rests. God wants us to rest in Him, in His promise that we have been sealed by Christ's blood. Amidst all the craziness of school, social life, and other random responsibilities, we are called to rest. Not IF we have time, or IF things are going well, or IF we don't have homework, or work, or any other random excuse we can find; we are called to rest in God's presence. Phillipians 4:4-6 says "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." Y'all, God does not say here "don't be anxious about anything, unless it is *insert any concern you have that you put over God*" God tells us to give up what we are anxious about to him, to trust that he is in control, and to rest in that. Rest in the promises of God, friends. Know that our God is so faithful and so consistent in his loving character. Sorry that this was a bit long and probably too wordy, hopefully next week i will be a bit less frazzled. Thanks for reading y'all! P.s., if anyone has any questions about link year or anything that i said in this post please don't hesitate to ask!!