If you have read my first “Things I wish I knew when I was young” post you would understand that I am not against good advice but I do believe it can be harmful if not prioritized correctly. First and foremost I believe that you must understand the Gospel and look to Christ first for your hope and everything. That is our life long lesson and struggle. With that in mind I am going to share some things I consider wise and helpful but they are not to be taken as “law” but as thinking and talking points. No one is going to be perfect and we all fail.

The real question is do we get back up because our eyes are on Christ, or do we pout and stay down? Do we persevere through trials because our joy is found in Christ and our eternal hope set in Him or do we give up because life becomes hard? Do we complain at pain and suffering because we wrongly think God saved us to make us happy earthlings or do we persevere knowing that Christ endured more and has promised us eternal joy and bliss while making us into Christ like people?

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I am sure that those of you older than I laugh at the thought of me thinking of myself being younger as if those few years that mark me between this age (young) and that age (younger) constitute a significant passage of time and life growth. To assure you in the positive I will say: it has. Growth sometimes has been slow for me, but it never has been shallow. Like Timothy, people doubt the young, but wisdom comes from God and he doesn’t have an age bias. Let my thoughts speak for themselves.

Many people think they are “ready” for marriage way before they actually are. While a significant amount of people are not “ready” for marriage even though they are married, this point is proven by the high divorce rate among the populace at large. I have learned that being ready for marriage doesn’t mean financial or occupational security (although such things are important to some people), but rather something deeper and more base. With my whole heart I believe God cares more about our character and its development (sanctification) than he does our temporal happiness (ultimately he cares about our eternal happiness, but I am speaking only about earthly things). So while one might think that having a good job, a house, and a bank account are necessary for being ready for marriage, I disagree. Of course having such things doesn’t mean you are not ready, but it doesn’t mean you are ready. Considering our current economic problems I am sure many people will agree with me that a good job and a home give one no security and in fact going from having them to not having them can actually destroy marriages.

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There are many stories in the world. Stories on all types of topics ranging from your sappy romance between two saplings in love to the most violently scarey attack of the rabid bunny horror films. The truth of the matter is, between all these stories, only the good ones have happy endings. Now of course how good a story is ultimately depends on many factors such as: originality, depth, tone, twists, understandability, meaning, and of course its conclusion. My purposes here is not to discuss all the aspects of story, except for one: the conclusion. No matter how good all aspects of a story are, its ending holds the final trump card which dictates how good the story really is. I would also argue that for the ending of the story to be anything but happy, it isn’t a good story.

Let us first start out by defining the word Story. A story is simply the telling of a particular sequence of events, fiction or not, that communicates a certain message (known or unknown). Every story communicates something (even if not intended by the author). If a sequence of events can be communicated in a way that no meaning can be derived from it, then it isn’t a story. Likewise if one just blathers incoherent and meaningless words, it isn’t a story. All stories have structure. They all have a beginning, middle, and end. They all have a subject and, like I said before, a meaning.

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